Disputable decision
The post-race discussion after the Saudi Arabian GP was dominated by the ‘Verstappen case’ and the debate over whether or not the penalty given to the Dutchman was justified, after he cut turn 1 and failed to yield position to Oscar Piastri, who eventually won the race thanks to the five-second penalty given to Max Verstappen. A similar infraction—penalized with a 10-second sanction due to the lack of the mitigating factor of it being the first lap—was committed, according to the stewards, by Liam Lawson when overtaking Jack Doohan’s Alpine.
What happened to the New Zealander received less attention, as his battle didn’t involve the front positions, but the penalty given to car #30 is stirring a lot of discussion online. The stewards’ decision in this case appears extremely harsh. In justifying it, the stewards wrote: “Although he completed the overtake before turn 1, the speed he reached in the corner prevented him from staying on track through turn 1. He therefore failed to successfully overtake car 7 without leaving the track, thereby gaining a lasting advantage which he did not relinquish. The standard 10-second penalty was therefore applied.”
Liam Lawson got a 10s time penalty cause of this incident….pic.twitter.com/kZpcORJDnB
— RBR Daily (@RBR_Daily) April 20, 2025
The stewards’ version
However, upon reviewing the footage, there are significant doubts about whether Lawson actually gained an advantage in this situation: Alpine car #7 completed the overtaking maneuver immediately after the start/finish line on the main straight, approached turn 1 with a clear margin, and then went slightly wide, putting his right wheels—and for a moment also the front left—outside the track limits, as seen in the onboard footage. Lawson, however, did not cut the corner but attempted to rejoin and complete it. In doing so, he slightly blocked Doohan, who was coming up behind.
It seems evident that the Racing Bulls driver was attempting to complete the corner properly, without deliberately going wide to gain an advantage. For this reason, the decision to penalize him seems excessively harsh—especially with the full penalty and without any mitigating factors. The 10-second addition to his race time cost Lawson one position: he had crossed the line in 11th place, ahead of Fernando Alonso, but dropped behind the Spaniard in the final classification. The penalty also prevented Lawson from realistically fighting for points: on track, the former Red Bull driver finished just over one second behind his teammate Hadjar, who was tenth, and he might have tried an attack on the sister car had he not been anticipating the time penalty.
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