{'I could have killed them' - Lawson experiences near miss with F1 track officials
Formula 1 competitor Liam Lawson revealed he came dangerously close to a life-threatening collision during Sunday's F1 event in Mexico when two safety personnel ran across the track directly in front of him
The concerning event occurred on the third lap when safety workers were seen on the track as Lawson was rejoining the race following an early pitstop to replace his damaged front wing
Driver's Immediate Reaction
Moments later, Racing Bulls driver Lawson spoke to his team engineer saying: "Is this for real? Could you believe what happened? I could have... killed them"
"I genuinely couldn't process what I was witnessing"
"I exited on a new set of hards, and then I approached Turn One and suddenly there were two individuals sprinting across the track"
"I came close to striking one of them, frankly, it was extremely hazardous"
Track Safety Questioned
"Clearly there's been a failure in communication somewhere but This is the first time I've faced that before, and I haven't really seen that in the past. It's pretty unacceptable"
"We fail to grasp how on a ongoing race track track officials can be authorized to just dash across the track like that. I have no idea why, I'm certain we'll get some sort of explanation, but it really can't happen again"
Formal Inquiry in Progress
F1's overseeing organization, the International Automobile Federation (FIA), is actively examining the situation
"After an occurrence at turn one, the race directors was advised that debris was present on the track at the critical section of that bend" commented the governing body
"In the third rotation, marshals were alerted and made ready to enter the track and recover the debris once the entire field had cleared the area"
"Immediately when it was understood that Lawson had pitted, the orders to send marshals were canceled and a double yellow flag was shown in that section"
"The examination is ongoing what happened subsequent to that time"
