Young F1 driver takes aim at Lewis Hamilton in radio message

Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari, Imola, 2025 — Photo: © IMAGO

Monaco Grand Prix

Young F1 driver takes aim at Lewis Hamilton in radio message

Liam Lawson was not happy with Hamilton

Originally written by Sam Cook. This version is a translation.

Saturday 24 May 2025 19:00

Young Racing Bulls star Liam Lawson and his race engineer were caught criticising Formula 1 legend Lewis Hamilton's driving style this weekend.

The Brit was driving slowly in front of Lawson in practice in an attempt to open up a gap ahead of him on the notoriously tight Monaco circuit to optimize his own flying lap.

The incident happened during FP1 around the streets of Monaco, where a lot of drivers had been complaining about similar incidents from their rivals.

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However, this particular impeding incident prompted a rather snide comment from Lawson's race engineer Ernesto Desiderio, who appeared to criticise Hamilton's general driving style during practice sessions.

"I nearly hit Hamilton, he like braked right before the last corner," Lawson said over team radio, to which his race engineer cheekily replied: "Yeah, usual Hamilton stuff, that's okay."

Impeding a huge problem in Monaco

Lance Stroll veered into the path of Charles Leclerc who was on a flying lap in FP1, causing the Monegasque driver to slam into the back of him. While Leclerc was able to change his front wing and carry on in the session, Stroll badly damaged his gearbox and rear suspension, and was ruled out of the rest of the session.

On top of this, Max Verstappen was seemingly left seething at rookie Gabriel Bortoleto, as those two drivers almost had a collision after the Brazilian had impeded the four-time champion.

While impeding is always a huge problem around the streets of Monaco, this year's event sees four rookies taking to the track, which has arguably exacerbated the number of incidents.

Even Lawson, who is not technically a rookie, has never competed in an F1 race weekend around the Monaco street circuit.

Lewis Hamilton Mercedes Aston Martin Liam Lawson Monaco Grand Prix