Racing Bulls driver Liam Lawson was raging after almost hitting two marshals who ran across the track at Sunday’s Mexican Grand Prix, an incident he labelled “unacceptable” as he “could have killed them.”
As Lawson came through Turn 1 following an early pit-stop, two marshals were on the circuit, apparently having been collecting debris on the track.
The footage was not shown on the Formula 1 world feed, which broadcasters around the world take of the live race, but a view from the onboard camera on Lawson’s car quickly circulated on social media.
That video showed Lawson almost hitting one of the marshals, who he appeared to see at the last moment.
Speaking to his team on the radio immediately afterwards, Lawson said: “Wait, the f—, oh my god, are you kidding me? Did you see that? Oh my god, dude.”
When his race engineer said he did a good job to avoid them, Lawson said: “I could have f—ing killed them, mate”.
Lawson was still in a state of disbelief after the race.
“I honestly couldn’t believe what I was seeing,” he said. “Boxed, came out on a new set of hards, and then I got to turn one and there were just two dudes running across the track. 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, and I haven’t really seen that in the past. It’s pretty unacceptable.
“We can’t understand how on a live track, marshals can be allowed to just run across the track like that. I have no idea why, I’m sure we’ll get some sort of explanation, but it really can’t happen again.”
The FIA, who oversee the marshalling of every Formula 1 race, said in a statement following the race that it was investigating the incident.
“Following a Turn 1 incident, Race Control was informed that debris was present on the track at the apex of that corner,” the FIA said. “On lap 3, Marshals were alerted and placed on standby to enter the track and recover the debris once all cars had passed Turn 1.
“As soon as it became apparent that Lawson had pitted, the instructions to dispatch marshals were rescinded, and a double yellow flag was shown in that area.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.”
