Hamilton blames F1 rules for Lawson near-miss in Baku

Lewis Hamilton has pointed the finger at Formula 1’s energy-management constraints to justify his near catastrophic run-in with Liam Lawson in Thursday’s second practice session in Baku, arguing that the 2026 rules can leave drivers effectively powerless at precisely the wrong moment.

The Ferrari driver was completing an out-lap when Lawson came charging through the final sector on a qualifying-style run.

Hamilton was harvesting energy rather than deploying it, leaving his SF-26 dramatically slower as the Racing Bulls driver approached at full speed.

Lawson was forced to take avoiding action through the fast left-right sequence before the main straight and immediately made his displeasure known over team radio: “Oh my god, that is so dangerous”.

The incident was referred to the stewards, with both drivers summoned to explain what happened. Ultimately, Hamilton was reprimanded for the incident, but pleaded that the circumstances exposed a regulatory problem rather than a simple case of driver error.

Hamilton: ‘The speed deficit was huge’

The Briton explained that F1’s current power unit regulations create a particularly awkward scenario for drivers beginning a lap, because the battery deployment available on a flying lap is not available while the car is harvesting energy.

“Naturally, it’s never an intention from any driver to get in the way,” the seven-time world champion said.

“Basically with the way the rules are set, when you do an out-lap and when you come round the last corner to start your lap you have no K, so you have no battery deployment.

“You just have the ICE, so it’s something like 500bhp less.

“There’s no guidelines also on how big a gap you have to understand the closing speed that you are going to have with a guy that’s on a lap. I was four seconds ahead, I thought there was enough.

“I was like ‘this looks big enough’, got on the power and once I got into [Turn] 18 the speed deficit was huge and there was nowhere I could go at that point. So unfortunate, but it gives us good guidelines as to what to potentially change tomorrow.”

The problem, in Hamilton's view, is therefore not simply judging the distance to an approaching car. The radically different power states of two cars can make what appears to be a substantial gap disappear with alarming speed.

That becomes particularly relevant at Baku, where the final sector feeds directly onto the circuit's enormous main straight and drivers on a hot lap can arrive at high speed.

Hamilton wants a power-management fix

Hamilton was adamant that drivers should not shoulder the blame for a situation created by the way the new power units are required to operate.

“That’s not the drivers’ fault. That’s what the FIA did with the decisions at the beginning of the year and we’re trying to manage the best we can as drivers on track in finding the right gaps and not getting in the way of people,” he added.

With the incident now in the hands of the stewards, Hamilton also offered a candid assessment of the process drivers face when summoned, while stressing that he respected the officials' role.

“When you go to the stewards, they have a set of rules that they have to go with, but it’s like interrogation. You sit in a room with like six people and they are like ‘so, give us your views’. It’s a really unpleasant experience,” he admitted.

“They have a job to do and I have respect for them for the job they are trying to do and always being fair. But it is practice, it’s Friday [sic, Thursday] and it’s a day that we learn about these things.”

The more immediate solution, Hamilton suggested, could come from changing how battery deployment is managed at circuits where cars are prohibited from slowing down in specific sections.

“We go to the drivers’ briefing now and we’ll talk about this scenario,” he added.

“One of the proposals was that when you are on the lap and you come round the last corner, you have max power all the way through 18 and 19 and then it resets out of 19, the battery power.

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“There are tracks where you are not allowed to go slower in a certain section and they should give us power through that section, so even if you are on a slow lap, you have to go full gas and you have maximum power and you’ll never be in anyone’s way.

“So we’ll talk about it in the drivers’ briefing and hopefully we will come to some sort of conclusion. We are going to have an interesting discussion if there’s a penalty from this, because it’s Friday and it’s not changed anybody’s weekend.

“Hopefully they’ve understood and we’ll work together to make sure this doesn’t happen [again].”

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