F1 star crashes into rival, flipping his car out the race, but here is why he avoided FIA punishment

Lawson and Gasly — Photo: © Credit: Red Bull content pool

Miami Grand Prix

F1 star crashes into rival, flipping his car out the race, but here is why he avoided FIA punishment

Pierre Gasly crashed out of the race on lap six

Sam Cook Digital Journalist

Sports Journalist who has been covering motorsport since 2023

Monday 4 May 2026 18:28

An F1 star avoided punishment at the Miami Grand Prix for an early incident which saw Pierre Gasly's Alpine flipped on its head.

On lap six, seconds after Isack Hadjar has crashed into the wall at turn 14, Gasly was scrapping with Hadjar's former team-mate Liam Lawson heading into turn 17, the final corner before the long start/finish straight.

No safety car had been called just yet to remove Hadjar's car, so Gasly and Lawson were scrapping under green flag conditions.

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However, as Lawson attempted to overtake Gasly, the New Zealander locked up his front left tyre, and bashed into Gasly's car, causing the Alpine to launch into a dramatic flip before ending up the right way up in the TechPro barriers.

Needless to say, Gasly's participation in the race was over, but he immediately confirmed on team radio that he himself was ok. Lawson, meanwhile, tried to continue on in the race before later retiring with too much damage to his car.

With both cars out of the race, the FIA confirmed that they would investigate the incident in the aftermath of the Miami GP, and reached a rather surprising conclusion after both drivers were called to the stewards' room.

MIAMI RESULTS: Final classification with all late penalties applied

Lawson handed no further action verdict

Despite it looking like Lawson had dive bombed Gasly and inadvertently taken him out of the race, FIA race stewards' revealed that no further action would be taken against the Racing Bulls driver.

The reason was that Lawson had a mechanical issue with his car even before the incident, which was causing his gearbox to fail under braking.

An FIA statement confirmed this, saying: "The stewards heard from the driver of car 30 (Liam Lawson), the driver of car 10 (Pierre Gasly), team representatives and reviewed positioning/marshalling system data, video, telemetry, team radio and in-car video evidence.

"Car 10 (Pierre Gasly), was attempting an outside pass of car 30 (Liam Lawson) at the entry to turn 17. Car 10 was clearly ahead prior to the apex and had established its rights under the Driving Standards Guidelines.

"A significant collision occurred and car 10 was pushed into the barriers, with the car flipping and ending up wedged in the TechPro.

"The driver of car 30 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.

"Under the circumstances, the stewards determine that a mechanical failure, not driver error, was the cause of the collision and therefore the driver of car 30, was not at fault for the collision. We therefore took no further action."

F1 FIA Alpine Liam Lawson Miami Grand Prix Pierre Gasly