US GP fined €500,000 after track incursion by 200 F1 fans

Organisers of Austin’s United States Grand Prix have been fined €500,000 by the FIA for an early track invasion by spectators, of which €350,000 is suspended.

At the end of the race at the Circuit of the Americas won by Charles Leclerc, throngs of spectators entered the track on the start-finish straight while cars were still coming on their cooldown laps after the end of the race.

The FIA estimated that around 200 people, coming from the grandstands opposite the pitlane, had climbed over a fence and dropped down two metres, before clearing a catchfence and a barrier separating them from the track itself.

Premature track invasions are considered a serious breach of the FIA’s safety protocols, and representatives from US Race Management and COTA were required to report to the FIA’s race stewards to provide an explanation.

In the meeting the stewards determined that the event had breached the FIA’s International Sporting Code by “failing to take reasonable measures thus resulting in an unsafe situation”.

The event has been handed a €500,000 fine, €350,000 of which is suspended until 31 December 2026 provided no other incursions take place at the Texas circuit’s FIA sanctioned events.

Part of the fine is suspended because this is the first time such a security breach has happened at COTA.

Before the end of the year, the promoter is also required to submit a formal remediation plan to the FIA that lays out the steps it will take to prevent a repeat, and investigate any other possible incursion areas around the 5.5km circuit.

The stewards noted that the event’s safety plan to allow spectators onto the circuit was well-implemented in itself, but that the organisers had missed a possible incursion area on the main straight that ended up causing safety problems on Sunday.

Crowd control issues have become a recurring theme in recent years. In 2023, track invasion issues marred the Australia Grand Prix in Melbourne, with the organisers asked to present a similar remedial report to the governing body. The Melbourne organisers ended up deciding to ban their traditional track invasion for this year’s race at Albert Park.

The problems in Australia last year were not unique either, with a similar situation happening at the Brazilian Grand Prix when fans spilled…