As RaceFans reports, Liam Lawson believes Formula 1's technical regulations are the real culprit behind a sketchy near-miss he experienced with Lewis Hamilton during practice in Baku. The Racing Bulls driver caught Hamilton blind through the flat-out, high-speed sequence of turns 18 and 19 near the end of a lap. While the stewards handed Hamilton a reprimand for impeding, Lawson insists the alarming moment is a direct byproduct of how the sport's rules currently work.
The root of the danger lies in battery energy management. Drivers pushing on a flying lap deploy all their stored electrical power to accelerate out of turn 16 and through the subsequent flat-out corners, exactly where Lawson encountered his rival. Drivers who are not pushing do not deploy the same energy, generating a massive speed delta between the two machines. "It's just unfortunately the way the regs are that you have a situation like this," Lawson said, calling the approaching speed differential quite sketchy.
The numbers paint a terrifying picture of modern F1 machinery operating on different energy modes. Lawson explained that when a car is fully deploying and another is not, the closing speed spikes by 60, 70, or even 80 kilometers per hour. Hamilton was out of sequence, coming out of turn 16 at full throttle with a gap of two or three seconds that normally would suffice, only for the immense velocity difference to erase it instantly. Lawson noted that if a slow car moves aside and brakes before turn 18, it risks blocking another car right behind, making it a critical problem that teams must examine overnight. Once a driver exits turn 16 and commits, there is genuinely nothing they can do.
To combat this, race director Rui Marques issued special guidelines for the weekend instructing drivers on slow or out laps to stick to the extreme left from the exit of turn 16 to the entry of turn 18. Teams and drivers are expected to manage traffic gaps before turn 18, crawling as slowly as necessary on the extreme left so they can clear the apexes of turns 18 and 19 without blocking a fast-approaching competitor. Slower cars are then instructed to stay on the extreme right on the exit of turn 19 until they reach a matching speed.
The stewards determined that Hamilton failed to follow these precise instructions. Though his team informed him twice that Lawson was fast approaching, Hamilton stayed on the racing line approaching turn 19, forcing Lawson to lift off the throttle and lightly apply the brakes. Because the impeding was deemed severe given the layout and specific race director notes—despite a lack of intent—the stewards issued a driving reprimand. They acknowledged the genuine difficulty of managing energy deployment between turns 16 and 19, noting that both drivers highlighted the massive speed gap when energy runs dry.
F1 previously altered its power unit rules earlier in the year to mitigate the exact risk of high closing speeds causing accidents. That earlier regulatory shift followed a high-speed crash at Suzuka when Oliver Bearman closed suddenly on Franco Colapinto’s Alpine.
