Liam Lawson, Isack Hadjar play down Brazil situation amid personal goal, as Lance Stroll surprised by apologetic Franco Colapinto’s comments.
It was unseen on world feed but F1 later on shared videos and onboard of the two Visa Cash App RB drivers coming together at the start of the last lap. Lawson was defending seventh from Hadjar, who tried a move at Turn 1 on the outside and the two made wheel-to-wheel contact.
Lawson managed to hang on for the whole lap and on the finish line, but it was close to losing out for both. The Kiwi was leading a long queue of drivers and any incident, it would have allowed multiple to get through. Hadjar raised his hand up and cleared it out moments outside the car in parc ferme.
Both the incident and the moment in parc ferme was caught on camera. A couple of weeks on, Hadjar reflected on the moment and noted that he pushed a bit more especially in the move he tried, which was a mistake. He went for it as it was more points for him in the race.
But there was no team call to hold position. Lawson acknowledged that and noted that he would have done the same probably if roles were reversed. He understood the eagerness considering the situation. He also acknowledged Hadjar coming to him to apologise.
On the other hand, there was couple more drivers with back and forth. Post Brazil, Alpine’s Colapinto pointed fingers at Aston Martin’s Stroll after the Canadian unknowingly caused Sauber’s Gabriel Bortoleto to crash out on Lap 1 in a dismal performance in his home event.
At that time, Bortoleto radioed it to be Stroll’s fault but post-race, he mellowed down on that call, while terming it as a racing incident. There was no penalty as well, but Colapinto stated that Stroll always causes a crash in a blunt assessment when talking to the media.
When asked about it in Las Vegas, Stroll was surprised by the comments made by Colapinto. The Canadian advised the Argentine to focus on scoring his first point in F1, while assessing that the Alpine driver must be frustrated with the season and life in general.
Colapinto, meanwhile, backtracked on his statement, implying it to be heat of the thing. The Argentine had clear picture of the incident which is why he shared his opinion on it. The Alpine driver even apologised for the comments, which were a bit out of the line.
Hadjar: “Honestly, I immediately jumped out of the car and came to apologise, because I was a bit aggressive. Looking back at the onboard, I think it was like, yeah, just both of us moving into one direction, and we, we got very lucky. So, yeah. Also, on my side, I should have been a bit more patient then, probably get him on the next straight. But yeah, I, I made a mistake, and that’s it. [I went for it] because it’s more points for me.
“Well, it’s always going to be like this, and my engineer on radio was, ‘click to overtake’, so it means what it means. You go for it, but yeah. There was no team orders at all. We can race each other freely, and as long as we keep it clean, and it was very borderline, unfortunately, so yeah. [And] yeah, it’s different [against teammate]. Honestly, never crashed with a teammate in my whole career. Like, you do take a bit more margin. So here’s something you should do. So, yeah.”
Lawson: “He said I came to apologise? He came to me to apologise. It was a close moment, obviously the last lap of the race. And yeah, basically, the thing is in the position I was in, I was on such old tyres, that if one of those cars got in front of me, they would have all got me. So, I was obviously trying to stay at the lead of the queue, trying to keep the clean air. And he went for a move and we touched into Turn 1. And fortunately, nothing, nothing came out of it. But yeah, he came to apologise to me, so. He said that? Yeah, he was, I mean it was respectful… I mean, at the end of the day, it’s last lap of the race. I think if roles were reversed, I would have gone for the same kind of overtake. You got to try and get your wheels in front before Turn 1. And yeah, and obviously I respected him apologising for that.
“As for team orders, I think that’s more of a question for the team over us. I think in that position, if we get a call once the race, obviously then it’s up to us to respect that call. But we obviously didn’t get that call. And I think they… obviously, the team respected us enough to not have a crash. But obviously it is high risk in that situation. So, hindsight is great, you can always look back on stuff. We got away with it in Brazil, but I think going forwards, ideally we don’t have that position in the last lap of a race like that. Yes. They’re very, very important for us and that’s what we’re very focused on. So, obviously from a team side, how we’ve finished in that order wouldn’t have mattered. But, at the same time, we’re in a team where we’re trying to prove, we’re both trying to prove a point in Formula 1 as well. And trying to secure, being a Formula 1 driver next year as well.”
Stroll: “I heard about it, yeah. I don’t know, maybe he’s frustrated and angry with life. I don’t how many points he has in the championship. How many? [Zero points] I don’t know, I think he should probably focus on his own things and try and score some points sometime this year. It was racing, I didn’t get a penalty in Brazil for anything. I spoke with Gabriel afterward, know you, it was racing. So yeah, Franco should focus on scoring a point.
“No, no, we spoke, we spoke, I mean it was racing. I don’t know like I said, I’m not surprised, maybe like I said, he’s frustrated with his season, not where he wants to be and needs to speak about other things that are irrelevant. My advice to him is that he tries to focus on his own thing and maybe score a point this year.”
Colapinto: “Yeah. I think you’re seeing a heat of the moment after the race. So the incident with Gabriel – I was just behind, and I just saw the moment. But of course, sorry if it affected him, of course. I was in the heat after the race, and yeah, hopefully it’s all good between us. But we’ve been spending a lot of time together on track in the races. We’ve been very close to each other, and we had some close fights. So, yeah.”
Here’s Liam Lawson, Isack Hadjar after Brazil
Here’s what Franco Colapinto said
Here’s what Gabriel Bortoleto said
Here’s Visa Cash App RB handling team matter
