Liam Lawson has revealed he suffered from a problem in the gearbox of his Racing Bulls car at the 2026 F1 Miami GP, causing what turned out to be quite the accident with Alpine’s Pierre Gasly at the end of the fifth lap of the grand prix.
The Racing Bulls driver was being overtaken by Gasly at the end of the back straight, and looked to have relinquished his 10th place. But as the pair approached the apex, the New Zealander carried too much speed and clattered into the side of the Alpine, which caused Gasly to flip around and end up at an angle in the barriers at the final corner of the race track.
Lawson: Sudden gearbox “failure” caused the incident with Gasly at 2026 Miami F1 GP
Initially, it seemed as if Lawson was – as Gasly himself put it before speaking to him – a bit over “optimistic” in trying to retain his place in the top 10. But as Lawson revealed speaking in ths print media pen after the 2026 F1 Miami GP, he suffered from a gearbox failure which put his car in neutral and meant he had no engine braking as he approached the corner:
“I went to brake for the last corner, and when I [put on] the brakes, we had a gearbox failure,” Lawson explained. “And I lost [drive], I went straight to neutral, and I couldn’t downshift or slow the car down.
“So it’s a shame, it’s obviously taken out Pierre [Gasly], which is not good, they were having a great weekend, and it’s retired us as well.”
Lawson “apologised” to Gasly and Alpine for the incident at the 2026 F1 Miami GP
Whilst the incident most importantly didn’t hurt either driver physically, it completely ruined both of their races, as Gasly retired on the spot and Lawson could only race for a few more laps before also having to abandon the race due to the extent of the damage in his VCARB-03.
He revealed he spoke with Pierre Gasly and the Alpine team and gave his apologies for the incident, which was ultimately caused by a reliability issue that wasn’t in his control:
“Yeah, I went and saw them to apologise, obviously they’ve had a great weekend.
“I just wanted to explain to them that I wasn’t intentionally trying to push the braking like that, I just had no gearbox and no brakes.”
The 24-year-old also explained that the issue happened in a matter of instant, given he had no previous indication that something might have been wrong in the car:
“Absolutely zero [previous indication], it just failed in that moment.”
Gasly: I was “quite scared” being in the air without control
On the other side of the most spectacular incident of the 2026 F1 Miami GP, Gasly admitted he was “quite scared” whilst he was, for a brief moment, completely in the air after colliding with Lawson, and without any control of his car or where he would potentially land, which he said “wasn’t pleasant” at all:
“I was luckily fine,” the Frenchman said. “And I must say I was quite scared because I was in the air without any control.
“I think I came in the wall rear-end first, so I didn’t even know where I was going to land. So it wasn’t pleasant.“
Gasly left “a car and a half” of space on the inside
*It’s important to note that the next few quotes from Pierre Gasly were taken before the Alpine driver had spoken with Liam Lawson, so he wasn’t aware that a faulty gearbox caused the almighty crash.
Initially, the Alpine driver that is currently ninth in the drivers’ chamionship thought Lawson was “too optimistic” trying to retain his place:
“I knew we were side by side. I knew at that time, unfortunately [he] would probably have to just accept to lose the position.
“But I knew he would still try [to come back]. So that’s why I left the space for a car and a half on the inside, just for him at least to have the choice to stay there if he really wanted.
“I haven’t seen exactly the footage, but clearly, it was too optimistic coming in.”
