F1 star 'saved rival's life' with incredible Australian Grand Prix move

Australian Grand Prix

F1 star 'saved rival's life' with incredible Australian Grand Prix move

The race start nearly ended in a crash

By Sheona Mountford.

Tuesday 10 March 2026 23:00

A remarkable moment at the start of the Australian Grand Prix has sparked huge praise online after one F1 driver pulled off an incredible save that some fans have described as “life-saving.”

The incident came as drivers continue adapting to the sweeping 2026 regulation changes. With the removal of the MGU-H from the power units, teams have once again been dealing with a familiar issue — getting the turbo fully spooled up during race starts.

Officials attempted to mitigate the problem by extending the start procedure to five seconds in Melbourne, giving drivers a little more time to prepare. Despite that adjustment, several cars still struggled to launch cleanly when the lights went out, creating a chaotic and potentially dangerous opening phase.

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One of which was Racing Bulls star Liam Lawson, whose slow start saw him tumble from eighth to 18th, and was nearly caught in a dangerous incident with Alpine's Franco Colapinto.

The Argentine narrowly avoided a collision with a stationary Lawson on the race start, by quickly squeezing into the space on the right-hand side by the wall to overtake.

"[These are] things that can happen with these new cars, but it was just very dangerous and quite sketchy, so I'm glad I went through that. I hit the wall a little bit with the rear right but generally was just that."

F1 fans react to Australian GP race start

One fan shared the clip of the race start from Colapinto's cockpit on social media, alongside the caption: "This is ridiculous. People talk a lot of crap about Colapinto, but his reaction time probably saved Liam’s life here."

Others agreed, with one adding in the comments: "All F1 drivers have lightning quick reaction times, but yes, he did really well to avoid a nasty collision and prevent both him and Lawson suffering some serious injuries."

Alternatively, other fans disagreed with the semantics that Lawson's life was at risk, with one writing: "Let's not exaggerate, people have crashed into stalled card before, it's not almost certainly not gonna kill you, especially not in these cars."

Another added: "Think it’s a bit exaggerating to say it saved his life. Modern open wheel machinery is very safe. If anything it could have hurt Franco more."

This then forced the original author of the post to respond, who said: "Jesus didn’t expect this to blow up. Clearly I was exaggerating."

F1 Alpine Australian Grand Prix Liam Lawson Franco Colapinto Racing Bulls