Liam Lawson earns extra points as Charles Leclerc hit with post-race penalty

Liam Lawson has been promoted to seventh place in the final Sao Paulo Grand Prix results after Charles Leclerc was handed a post-race time penalty.

On lap 69 of 71 in the wet conditions, Leclerc biffed Lawson out of the way at Turn 12 to get a better run up the hill - and eventually got past for the position on the next lap at Turn 4 to take seventh on the road, with Lawson eighth.

Lawson doubted Leclerc's move was legal post-race, and felt it was his "speciality" after a similar move on Alex Albon in the 2017 GP2 race in Abu Dhabi. 

Lawson finished 1.816s behind Leclerc on the road, but the incident was take to the stewards, where a five-second time penalty was applied for the Monegasque, meaning the two swapped places, with Lawson now seventh and Leclerc in eighth.

It means Lawson earns an extra two points to his tally, taking him to 89 for the season, and Leclerc drops from 251 to 249. 

In their investigation, and after speaking to both drivers, the stewards found that Leclerc's action "clearly disrupted" Lawson - and so handed a five-second sanction instead of the usual 10-second one for causing a collision. 

"The Stewards heard from the driver of Car 16 (Charles Leclerc), the driver of Car 30 (Liam Lawson), team representatives and reviewed positioning/marshalling system data, video and in-car video evidence and determined that Car 16 made contact with Car 30 at turn 12," began the report.

"While the contact was minor and Car 30 was able to maintain the lead thereafter, the driver of Car 30 claimed that the contact damaged the rear left rim of his car and also enabled Car 16 to get closer to him on track and then eventually overtake him 5 corners later. 

"Furthermore, under the Driving Standard Guidelines, Car 30 had the right to the corner and it was for Car 16 to take the necessary steps to avoid a collision.

"The driver of Car 16 claimed that it was a minor contact with no obvious sporting consequence.

"While we acknowledge that the contact was minor, having examined the fight on track between the two cars, we conclude that Car 16 was able to get closer to and thereafter overtake Car 30 because of the contact. 

"The contact clearly disrupted Car 30 and allowed Car 16 to pull up alongside when it was further away before the contact. This was an obvious sporting consequence.

"In mitigation, the wet conditions coupled with the nature of the contact (ie minor) was taken into account in imposing a 5-second time penalty as opposed to a 10-second time penalty."