Liam Lawson Clears FIA Investigation as Gearbox Failure Confirmed Behind Gasly Incident at Miami

Liam Lawson has been exonerated by the FIA stewards following a post-race investigation into his collision with Pierre Gasly at the Miami Grand Prix, with previously unbroadcast team radio footage revealing the moment the Racing Bulls driver realised a sudden gearbox failure had caused him to lose control of his car at the Turn 17 hairpin on Lap 5. Gasly’s Alpine flipped upside down in the incident before striking the tyre barrier, and the French driver retired immediately.



Lawson withdrew from the race one lap later, with the gearbox failure confirmed as the root cause.



The incident occurred just moments after a separate and chaotic opening exchange between Lawson and Max Verstappen had played out across the first two laps. Untelevised team radio released following the race captured Lawson’s frustration after the Red Bull made contact with him.



His race engineer Alexandre Iliopoulos then came over the radio instructing him to return the position to the senior team’s car: “Liam, we need to give the position back to Max. Need to give the position back to Max. 1.3 behind. Do it as soon as possible.” Lawson’s response was pointed: “Drove into the side of me.”



The FIA stewards’ determination that no further action was necessary against Lawson for the Gasly incident brought significant relief to a driver whose Miami weekend had already unravelled well before it properly started. The balance of the evidence pointed clearly toward mechanical rather than driver error, and the timing of the gearbox failure left Lawson unable to control his car’s trajectory into the braking zone. Racing Bulls confirmed the technical diagnosis after reviewing onboard data from the car.



The result continued what has been a difficult stretch for Lawson after a promising start to the 2026 season. He scored points in all three of the opening races and acknowledged in the post-Miami press pen that the car “wasn’t quick enough in general” even before the mechanical retirement. “The first couple laps, I already knew we had quite a bad balance. We were trying to chase it, but it wasn’t enough and obviously the gearbox failure is what retired us anyway.”



The broader picture for Lawson in 2026 has been one of steady adaptation to the most demanding set of F1 regulations in recent memory. He has been among the more candid voices on the grid about what the near-50/50 combustion-electric power split demands from drivers cognitively. “I think there are just more consequences when you get it wrong,” he told media earlier in the season. “If you use too much energy or something like this, it can be quite punishing. So we definitely have to… you’re doing a lot more thinking, I would say, when you’re driving.”



Racing Bulls sit seventh in the Constructors’ Championship at this stage of the season, having outperformed their grid expectations in the opening three rounds. Lawson has accumulated 10 points to Arvid Lindblad’s four. Montreal on May 22-24 will offer the New Zealander his next opportunity to rebuild momentum after a Miami weekend that offered very little other than confirmation that the technical gremlins rather than his driving contributed to the outcome.
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