Charles Leclerc crashes before Miami F1 sprint even begins as Lewis Hamilton fumes

Charles Leclerc crashed his Ferrari car before the sprint race even started in Miami, with team-mate left fuming at his mechanics for putting intermediate tyres on his car. Leclerc had qualified P6 for Saturday's sprint, with Hamilton just behind him in seventh.

Heavy rain hit the Miami track ahead of the race, leaving the track soaking wet. The pit lane had just opened to let the drivers go to the grid, and on a very wet track Leclerc hit the wall heavily.

The Ferrari man had not even been pushing his car but the heavy rain and standing water caught him out and he skidded into the wall. The crash left his rear right wheel hanging off the car, with Leclerc unable to get it back to the pits, meaning he would not start.

The 27-year-old was left devastated by the incident. He said over team radio: "No, no. Ouch. I'll try to go back. Complete aquaplanning. That was complete aquaplanning, I was not even pushing. I don't think I can go back."

Despite the rain and the standing water, Ferrari had opted to send Leclerc and team-mate Hamilton out on the intermediate tyres, rather than full wets. That proved to be a catastrophic decision, with Hamilton left fuming at the team. He said over team radio: "I don't know how you put us out on Inters here."

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Leclerc cut a downbeat figure after sprint qualifying on Friday night, admitting the team had little idea how to solve their issues. He said: “Bad. The lap was good, but the pace is just not at all there for now, so it is a bit annoying.

“It’s every corner really, it’s not like we are particularly weak in one type of corner. Yes, the slow speed seems to be a bit more of our weakness, but it changes from one weekend to the other, so it is just not great.”

The sprint race takes place before qualifying for Sunday's Grand Prix. And Hamilton admitted that Ferrari had work to do to rescue their weekend.

“I thought it was a better session,” said Hamilton. “FP1 was a bit better, the car was a bit nicer to drive in FP1 but yeah, we are just lacking speed. [We’ll] just keep working on it from there. I think all the cars ahead are faster. Yeah, not much else to say.”

“There are always ideas, whether or not they are going to be right or not, but there [are] definitely learnings to take from today, set-up changes we made and how the car behaved. There is definitely work to do to pick up speed going into the rest of the weekend.”

Hamilton's replacement at Kimi Antonelli claimed pole for the sprint race. But with numerous drivers complaining about visibility, the race director opted to red flag the race after just one lap.