The stewards have cleared New Zealander Liam Lawson for the contact that led to Pierre Gasly’s car rolling over. By listening to the Racing Bulls driver’s explanations and reviewing the onboard footage, it becomes clear that before the contact, during the deceleration phase, the gearbox on Lawson’s car failed, which then triggered the lock-up and the subsequent collision.
The incident between Pierre Gasly and Liam Lawson naturally raised concern due to the way the French driver’s car flipped over before ending up against the barriers. Fortunately, the Alpine driver was able to exit the cockpit without suffering any significant physical injuries, but the episode was immediately placed under scrutiny by the stewards to determine whether Lawson should receive a penalty.
In terms of the incident itself, the sequence of events was relatively straightforward. The New Zealand driver went deep under braking and made contact with Gasly. However, the stewards decided not to penalise Lawson because the lock-up that triggered the collision was not the result of a driving error by the Racing Bulls driver, but rather a gearbox failure that occurred while he was attempting to decelerate.
At the moment he began downshifting, the car first went into neutral and then into anti-stall mode, with the gearbox failing to shift below fourth gear. After attempting to reset the system by exiting anti-stall, Lawson managed to get going again in the hope of continuing the race, but it quickly became clear that something on the car was not functioning properly.
Even before Turn 5 on the lap following the contact, another issue occurred, and again before the braking zone for Turn 11. At that point, the team instructed him not to change gear in order to avoid further stress on the transmission and to bring the car back to the pits. Liam Lawson therefore completed the entire final sector in second gear, managing to return to the pit lane where he eventually retired.
For this reason, the stewards classified the cause of the incident as a “mechanical failure”, which does not constitute grounds for penalising the New Zealander, who later went to see Gasly after the race to check on the French driver’s condition and to explain what had happened.
“The driver of car 30 explained that, just before the collision, he had experienced a technical problem because the gearbox failed under braking. The stewards examined the onboard data and telemetry and confirmed that there was clearly a gearbox failure immediately prior to the incident in question. The radio communications were also consistent with a gearbox failure,” the stewards’ statement read.
“We therefore accept the driver’s explanation that this was a failure of a mechanical component of the car and that there was nothing he could have done to avoid the collision. We also considered whether the driver of car 30 could have anticipated the gearbox failure and concluded that this would not have been possible.” –
“Given the circumstances, the stewards determine that a mechanical failure, and not driver error, was the cause of the collision and that the driver of car 30 is therefore not responsible for the incident. We take no further action.”
Lawson stated that the issue was something he had never experienced before in his Racing Bulls car this season and that, at that point, the collision with Gasly was unavoidable, as he even ended up locking up before the impact due to the complete loss of deceleration capability.
“It’s obviously a bad situation for both of us. I got to the last corner and when I braked I lost the gearbox, it went into neutral and I had no gears, so I couldn’t stop. It’s not something that has ever happened to me before. Obviously it’s quite a serious issue for us and it’s what forced us to retire, but it’s a shame because it also involved Pierre,” Lawson added at the end of the Miami Grand Prix.
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