Liam Lawson is under fire following his behaviour at the recent 2025 Mexican Grand Prix. After suffering front wing damage on lap one, the Racing Bull’s driver immediately returned to the pits for a new nose cone.
On his return to the circuit, there were double waved yellow flags as he approached turn one, because race control had sent marshals out to recover the debris which was said to be at the apex of the corner.
Data now shows Lawson failed to obey the regulations for double waved yellows which is “slow down and be prepared to stop.” Mexico’s motorsports federation, OMDAI, haven’t published a report on the incident with supporting evidence from on board camera shots together with long range camera angles.
Mexican motorsport federation criticises Lawson
OMDAI claim Lawson did not obey the FIA regulations for double waved yellow and present the case that currently the FIA is not enforcing its own rules as drivers merely lift off the throttle in these situations which is unacceptable.
The report summarises the event as follows: “When analysing the sequence from the camera onboard the car, it can be seen that driver Liam Lawson, as he approaches Turn 1, begins to turn to take the racing line, at which point the presence of the track marshals is clearly visible as they carry out their intervention procedures to collect the pieces that had been left behind as a result of the previous contact.”
“The proximity of the car to the work area shows that the track marshals were still active within the risky area, performing cleaning and safety tasks on the circuit.
“The images clearly show that driver Liam Lawson maintains the steering wheel angle of his car when taking Turn 1, without changing his trajectory, even though the track marshals were crossing the track to return to their post. This action occurs while personnel were still working in the area, which shows that the driver did not Interrupt his line despite the obvious presence of marshals on the track,” the report concludes.
Lawson ‘surprised’ by the incident
The Mexican motorsports federation have rightly raised this matter which would otherwise have disappeared under the carpet when the sport returns to racing in just over a week in Brazil. Following the Jules Bianchi raged at the 2014 Japanese Grand Prix, little has changed in terms of drivers obeying the double waved yellow flags and its due to a failure by the FIA to police this properly.
Liam Lawson was himself shocked by the incident, again proof that drivers do not expect severe consequences when they see the double waved yellow flags. “I honestly couldn’t believe what I was seeing,” said the New Zealander. “I got to Turn 1 and there were two dudes just running across the track. And I nearly hit one of them. Honestly, it was so dangerous.
“Obviously, there’s been a miscommunication somewhere, but I’ve never experienced that before, I’ve only seen that in the past. It’s pretty unacceptable. We obviously can’t understand how, on a live track, marshals can be allowed to just run across the track like that. I mean, I have no idea why, but I’m sure we’ll get some explanation,” Lawson concluded.
The genuine naivety of Liam’s statement demonstrates Formula One has not got to grips with its next potential tragedy. Lawson saw the flags, is used to doing a minor lift from the throttle to inform the stewards he has seen them and is then shocked when he sees marshals on track.
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The very fact there were double waved yellows should instantly inform the driver there’s potential danger ahead and he must “slow down and be prepared to stop.” Yet the failure by the FIA to police this at all of their international levels of single seater competition has bred a complacent attitude in the drivers, as Lawson’s reaction reveals.
Martin Brundle in the Sky F1 show revealed how much F1 has changed since he was driving over three decades ago. “I hit a marshal in a downpour in Suzuka once and smashed his legs. There was nothing I could do about it I just aquaplaned off the track. I’m still sick in my stomach today when I think about it.” He also referred to an incident when he was competing in touring cars in the 1980’s where he reported some debris on track over team radio. “It turned out to be a dead marshal,” he shockingly revealed.
Of course safety in Formula One has vastly improved since the 1980’s but the current crop of drivers do not understand the consequences of what can happen when they break the yellow flag rules. Such is the competitive nature of the sport they would rather risk potentially maiming a marshal than loosing two or three seconds to an on track rival.
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Jaques Villeneuve argues this is outrageous when asked about the Meican marshal incident. “That’s stuff from the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s. It shouldn’t happen. A double yellow flag you know you’re supposed to slow down – I mean nobody slows down – they just do quick lift off the gas, lose a thousandth of a second and everybody is happy. ‘Oh look he slowed down and is under control.’
“That’s not slowing down. Its not – but the rules allow for it,” he concluded in a clearly frustrated manner. The FIA claim they are investigating the matter and issued a statement following Sunday’s frightening incident.
“On lap 3, marshals were alerted and placed on standby to enter the track and recover the debris. As soon as it became apparent that Lawson had pitted, the instructions to dispatch marshals were rescinded, and a double yellow flag was shown in that area. We are still investigating what occurred after that point,” read the missive from Paris.
Lawson is no different from any of the current breed of F1 drivers, they have been educated by the inappropriate policing of yellow flags their entire careers. Few of them have seen a real racing tragedy like the one Bianchi suffered in 2014 and such is the level of safety they feel in their cars, they behave as though they are invincible.
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Indycar show the way with full time professionals
In Indycar, North America’s premier single seater racing series, the nature of the numerous street circuits and ovals means there are often significant crashes multiple times a race. Their equivalent safety car procedure is called a “full course yellow” which sees the cars reduce speed to almost walking pace as they approach the incident, then later in the lap they pick up a pace car which controls the speed.
Indycar also employ full time professionals who deal with all on track incidents during a race weekend. The AMR safety crew travel from race to race and their levels of experience mean they can work on track, even when the drivers are not yet behind the safety car. Further the respect of the drivers in Indycar for the yellow flags is chalk and cheese from how they are treated in F1.
In financial terms Formula One is almost infinitely more wealthy than Indycar, yet it persists with part time amateur stewards and marshals who may police a handful of lower category motorsport events each season. Its clearly a nonsense, but the power the grace and favour appointments of the stewards and clerk’s of the course offer to the president of the FIA mean little will be done until a person of principal occupies that office once again.
FOM needs to ‘pay up’
The president of the FIA has made his position clear on employing full time stewards, he is prepared to act in regard to the criticism that rotating part time stewards but has demanded FOM pay for the additional cost this will bring.
“It’s very nice talk,” Ben Sulayem told Autosport in December 2024. “But when they say professional, and they want professional, they don’t want to pay for it. That is so obvious.” Full time stewards and a permanent safety team would indeed cost tens of millions of dollars, but the FIA president points out the absurdity of the situation when stating, “The drivers [some of them] are getting over $100 million.”
Autosport went on to quote one unnamed team boss on the topic. “Ultimately, it’s the FIA’s responsibility,” he said. “This kind of looks like a scope of work between FOM and the FIA. So if FOM is writing a cheque which they are, to the FIA, but the scope of work says ‘part-time stewards’ and F1 wants something different then that is different, and it comes with a new price.”
The fact that the most watched sport annually in the world does not pay for full time ‘referees’ and for a full time professional on track safety team is incredulous. Even worse the FIA is it does not police its own on track safety regulations regarding yellow flags, which is a matter that could be resolved by issuing proper penalties to the drivers for situations similar to that which arose in Mexico City.
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The adage “never meet your heroes” stems from the reality that people we admire from a distance are often idealised, and they can fail to live up to our unrealistic expectations in real life. Meeting them can be a disappointing experience that shatters the image we’ve built up in our heads. And in Formula One this truth is stark.
Martin Brundle is perceived as a Formula One UK ‘national treasure’ much of which is based on an average racing career which saw him compete against Ayrton Senna in F3 in the 1980’s and in F1 a year alongside Michael Schumacher and Mika Hakkinen where he was not competitive.
His transition to becoming a broadcaster along with the now infamous ‘grid walk’ he pioneered has placed Brundle on the screens of the UK F1 fans for over two decades. Having a racing driver as a commentator has given fans the feeling they are closer to the action in understanding what’s going on on screen….. READ MORE
A.J. Hunt is Senior Editor at TJ13, where Andrew oversees editorial standards and contributes to the site’s Formula 1 coverage. A career journalist with experience in both print and digital sports media, Andrew trained in investigative journalism and has written for a range of European sports outlets.
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Firstly, a local club’s view has zero relevance & no data shows that Lawson didn’t heed for the double yellows, so this claim is totally unfounded.
He definitely heeded by slowing down significantly as required, so he did all he could in the circumstances that were totally out of his control.
All in all, the close-call situation was solely caused by lack of communication somewhere & had he failed to heed for the double yellows, FIA would simply penalized him on location for a failure to heed for caution as they’ve got access to telemetry data & by doing so, they saw by fact that Lawson did nothing wrong or that nothing he did contributed to the close-call situation in the first place.
Therefore, the fact that he wasn’t penalized for a failure to heed for caution flags is automatically a concrete proof that he indeed heeded for the caution.
The local club shouldn’t make serious accusations against him as a clear-cut innocent party without anything to back up such accusations.