{'I could have killed them' - Lawson encounters near miss with F1 marshals
Formula 1 racer Liam Lawson disclosed he narrowly avoided a potentially deadly collision during Sunday's Mexican Grand Prix when a pair of track officials darted across the track immediately ahead of his car
The concerning event occurred on the third circuit when track officials were spotted on the racing surface as Lawson was getting back on the race following an early pitstop to change his damaged front wing
Racer's Instant Response
Moments later, Racing Bulls driver Lawson communicated to his pit wall engineer saying: "You've got to be joking? Did you witness that? I nearly... ended their lives"
"I genuinely couldn't process what I was seeing"
"I exited on a new set of hards, and then I got to Turn One and suddenly there were two guys running across the track"
"I nearly hit one of them, truthfully, it was incredibly risky"
Safety Concerns Raised
"Clearly there's been a failure in communication at some point but I've never experienced that before, and I haven't previously witnessed that in the past. It's absolutely inexcusable"
"We can't understand how on a live track marshals can be allowed to just dash across the track in that manner. I'm clueless about the cause, I'm sure we'll get some kind of clarification, but it really can't happen again"
Official Investigation Underway
F1's overseeing organization, the global motorsport federation, is thoroughly reviewing the events
"After an occurrence at turn one, the race directors was informed that fragments were located on the track at the apex of that corner" declared the regulatory authority
"In the third rotation, track officials were notified and placed on standby to go onto the racing surface and recover the debris once every vehicle had gone by"
"Immediately when it was understood that Lawson had made a pit stop, the directives to deploy personnel were rescinded and a double yellow flag was raised in that zone"
"Our inquiry continues what happened subsequent to that time"
