US GP chiefs slapped with £416,000 fine after 200 fans involved in serious safety protocol breach

FORMULA ONE race organisers at the United States Grand Prix have been slapped with a £416,000 fine after a serious breach of safety.

Charles Leclerc took the chequered flag in the race as Max Verstappen extended his Drivers’ Championship lead over Lando Norris after the Brit was hit with a controversial late penalty.

During the cool-down lap as drivers took their cars back to the pit lane there was a massive breach of safety.

Around 200 spectators in the grandstand were able to access the track and go straight onto the main straight.

An FIA statement explained that spectators had climbed a small fence before dropping two metres to the ground between the track debris fencing and the grandstand.

The fans had then gone under the debris fencing and climbed over a one-metre-tall trackside wall.

Fortunately, no injuries were reported.

Motorsport bosses deemed this to be a breach of the sporting code with a “failure to take reasonable measures thus resulting in an unsafe situation”.

Consequently, organisers were hit with a £416,000 (€500,000) fine and asked to deliver a plan to the FIA for how future incidents of a similar nature can be prevented.

However, because this was the first occurrence of its kind in the 12-year history of F1 at The Circuit Of The Americas, £292,000 (€350,000) of the fine was suspended.

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The condition of the suspension is that no similar incident takes place again before December 31 2026 at any FIA Championship event.

It was noted how actual plans in place for track incursions in Austin, Texas, had actually been “well implemented”, but that there had been a number of such incidents in recent times.

The statement added the money paid out would go towards motorsport safety.

The Australian Grand Prix was also hit by a fine for a fan invasion last year.

Source: Motorsport - thesun.co.uk