Colapinto relives ‘dangerous’ 200km/h near-miss with Lawson at Australian GP start

Franco Colapinto was already travelling at more than 200 km/h when he dived around the outside of a slow-moving Liam Lawson in a start at the Australian Grand Prix that several drivers have branded “dangerous”.

Colapinto’s start at the Albert Park Circuit was shown live at the time as the television crew focused on the lightning fast start from the Ferraris that allowed Charles Leclerc to snatch the lead from George Russell.

Franco Colapinto explains dangerous near-miss with Liam Lawson

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But further back, towards the very rear of the grid, there was a dangerous situation unfolding.

Colapinto, lined up P16 on the grid, made a good start while Liam Lawson in eighth “just lost all power” and “was sitting there”.

The gap between the two on the grid meant Colapinto had already built up speed as he closed in on Lawson’s stationary Racing Bulls car and had to take inch-perfect evasive action to escape what would’ve been a huge crash.

Talk about a near miss 😰

Unbelievable reactions from Franco 💪#F1 #AusGP @AlpineF1Team pic.twitter.com/zf1MqgqS0x

— Formula 1 (@F1) March 8, 2026

The near-miss prevented the chaos and carnage that drivers had feared as they lined up for their first race with their new power units.

Featuring a 50/50 split between electrical and combustion power, but having removed the MGU-H, the drivers have been finding it difficult to get their cars into the ideal start configuration as they no longer have the MGU-H to help with the lower revs.

Colapinto says it was “sketchy” at best, “dangerous” at worst.

“When I started to see the onboards after the race, it was even closer than what I thought, even more sketchy,” said the Alpine driver.

“Generally it’s things that we were expecting that would happen and things that we knew were there and issues that everyone was getting, every team.

“We talked in many different situations that these things were going to be a thing to look at and possibly dangerous situations. It happened. Luckily, I could manage to escape from it and manage to do the whole race.

“I was already doing 200 something km. So we were already very quick. When this boost kicks in and then the energy, it is a lot of power and we come very quick.

“There is a big speed difference between the cars that are having a problem and the cars that are going normally.”

The FIA had introduced a blue light system on the final two days of testing, one used in Melbourne, that gave the drivers a pre-warning that the start procedure was about to begin. But even that didn’t help some of the drivers.

Colapinto, though, is confident that in time the drivers and teams will improve their starts. But until then, it will remain a dangerous moment in the grand prix.

“I think naturally, everyone is going to improve on it,” Colapinto said. “Everyone is having issues and this inconsistency that that we all have is what, is what catches us out, because maybe you do a great start once, and then you go next session, you do the exact same procedure, and you have the worst start of your life.

“And that’s basically something that is very difficult for us to understand why it happens or to kind of know before we actually start. And yes, I think there is something to look at, but naturally, the teams are going to get better at the procedure, the systems are going to improve, and that’s gonna be helpful.

“And I think as the time goes by it’s gonna get much easier and better. But of course, at the minute is a little bit dangerous. Maybe we need to find a little fix to try and get us more ready.

“I haven’t seen any flags or any lights on the back of his car. I don’t know if the team knew already before he actually did the start, that they had this issue, and they could, like, preempt it a little bit more. But yeah, again, it’s early days to say. It’s only a first race of course, if we have these situations every weekend, something is going to happen at some point. So yeah, hopefully it gets better.”

Sergio Perez warns ‘just a matter of time before a massive shunt happens’

Cadillac driver Sergio Perez fears the sport is going to see a huge crash before that happens.

“It’s a shame,” said Perez. “It’s a shame that I say, but it’s just a matter of time before a massive shunt happens.

“These power units are very difficult to start. You can have a good start or you can have a bad start, by so many different factors. You can get anti-stalled, like what happened to Lawson, and then that can be very, very dangerous, because the speeds that you end up doing within two to three seconds are extremes.

“So it’s a difficult one, because I don’t know what you can do in that regard. It’s just these new engines are very difficult to start.”

Esteban Ocon reckons having a driver stall in front of your car would be “one of the worst crashes” a driver ever has.

“It was a scary one for sure for Franco,” he said. “This is something that we are all aware can happen, especially in this early stage of the year. It could have been dramatic, that’s for sure, and it’s probably something that we are going to be talking about further to make sure that this is not happening,” he said.

“We don’t want to see F2 starts happening in F1, and they should not happen in F2 either, but they are, more or less for the same reasons that they happen.

“We don’t want to see somebody stalling in front of you and then suddenly appearing from nowhere, because that’s probably one of the worst crashes you can have, so yeah, something to bear in mind.”

For Lance Stroll, the starts are just one issue he has with the new regulations.

“Yeah, it’s not great,” said the Aston Martin driver. “But there’s a lot of things with these regulations that are not great. That’s the truth.

“It’s what happens when you… The regulations are over complicated and probably unnecessarily complicated, and we have problems like we saw at the start in Australia.”

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