Liam Lawson was not penalised for his dramatic collision with Pierre Gasly after stewards concluded the incident was caused by a technical failure on his car.
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The two drivers collided at turn 17 on the sixth lap when Gasly attempted an outside pass on Lawson. The impact flipped Gasly’s Alpine and left it resting on the barrier at the outside of the corner.
Lawson briefly continued but retired shortly afterwards. He said the incident happened because his gearbox failed under braking, causing him to lock up and be unable to slow the car.
“It sucks for both of us, obviously,” Lawson said. “I just went into the last corner and when I braked, I lost the gearbox and I went into neutral. So I basically had no gears and I couldn’t stop.”
Racing Bulls confirmed the car suffered a failure of fifth gear, which led to the loss of control and ultimately forced their retirement.
“It’s not something I’ve had before,” Lawson added. “Obviously it’s quite a big issue for us and it’s what meant we had to retire the car. But it’s a shame because it’s obviously taken out Pierre as well.”
Both drivers were unable to continue after the collision. The stewards reviewed Lawson’s account alongside in-car data, telemetry and radio messages, which corroborated the gearbox failure, and therefore issued no penalty.
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In their written findings the stewards said: “The driver of car 30 [Lawson] explained that just before the collision, he had a technical issue as his gearbox failed under braking. The Stewards reviewed the in-car data and telemetry and confirmed that there was clearly a gearbox failure just before the incident in question. The radio communications were also consistent with the fact that there was a gearbox failure.
“We therefore accept the driver’s explanation that this was a failure of a mechanical part in the car and that there was nothing that he could do to avoid the collision. We also considered whether the driver of Car 30 had the ability to anticipate the failure of the gearbox and decided that it would not have been possible for him to do so.”
Gasly said Lawson visited and apologised after the crash. “It was definitely a scary feeling being flipped over in a Formula 1 car so I am glad it wasn’t too serious and I was able to climb out and walk away,” he said.
“My race was over with the incident with Liam, which, in my mind, is totally avoidable and should not happen,” Gasly added. “He has visited me to say sorry but I am just disappointed for the team as we had the pace and we deserved points.”
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