{"id":947087,"date":"2026-10-31T02:42:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-31T02:42:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/947087\/"},"modified":"2026-10-31T02:42:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-31T02:42:11","slug":"f1-2026-max-verstappen-slams-liam-lawson-after-mexico-city-grand-prix-practice-clash-oscar-piastri-narrowly-avoids-crash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/947087\/","title":{"rendered":"F1 2026: Max Verstappen slams Liam Lawson after Mexico City Grand Prix practice clash, Oscar Piastri narrowly avoids crash"},"content":{"rendered":"

Max Verstappen slammed his Red Bull stable-mate Liam Lawson as \u201cnot very smart\u201d after the pair clashed during a feisty battle in Friday\u2019s second practice for the Mexico City Grand Prix.<\/p>\n

As Ferrari\u2019s Charles Leclerc topped the times ahead of world champion Lando Norris of McLaren in an eventful session that saw Kimi Antonelli wind up fourth as he closes in on the title.<\/p>\n

Fox Sports, available on Kayo Sports, is the only place to watch every practice, qualifying session and race in the 2026 FIA Formula One World Championship\u2122 LIVE in 4K | Get Kayo now ><\/a><\/p>\n

For Australian Oscar Piastri, it was a frustrating day in Mexico City, running onto the grass at Turn 1 during the opening stages of the second practice session.<\/p>\n

The Aussie finished 10th in the session, narrowly avoiding the wall at the final corner after almost losing control of his McLaren on his final lap.<\/p>\n

Red Bull\u2019s four-time champion became embroiled in an incident that left him with damaged bodywork.<\/p>\n

He tangled with Racing Bulls\u2019 Lawson as they fought for track position going into the Foro Sol section and afterwards said the New Zealander caused the trouble.<\/p>\n

Debris from their minor collision caused the session to be red-flagged for the track to be cleared.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was not unlucky,\u201d said the Dutchman. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt was not very smart behaviour by him in what he was trying to do there. But it is not going to change my weekend.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it is just not very smart behaviour when you are fighting for your seat…\u201d <\/p>\n

READ MORE<\/p>\n

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Lawson has admitted this week that he does not know if he will retain his place next season with Racing Bulls, a sister team to Red Bull and regarded as a \u201cfeeder\u201d outfit, despite an impressive season including three races for Red Bull when Isack Hadjar was out injured.<\/p>\n

Racing Bulls may move to promote Red Bull junior driver Nikola Tsolov, who on Friday became the first Bulgarian driver to take part in an official practice session at a Grand Prix when he drove in FP1.<\/p>\n

Lawson has impressed throughout the year and out-performed team-mate rookie Arvid Lindblad comprehensively.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, he told reporters that finding consistency in formula one is hard, but he believed he has \u201cmaximised a lot this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not really sure what more is expected, but I\u2019m not really sitting here thinking too much about the whole seat selection thing.<\/p>\n

\"MaxMax Verstappen was left furious after clashing with Liam Lawson during practice for the Mexico City Grand Prix.Source: AFP<\/p>\n

\u201cI overthought things last year so I\u2019m trying a different mindset this year to score as many points as I can.\u201d <\/p>\n

Lawson is ninth in the drivers\u2019 championship with 77 points while teammate Lindblad is 11th on 38. His performances have helped lift Racing Bulls to fifth in the constructors\u2019 title race behind the big four of Mercedes, Ferrari, Red Bull and McLaren.<\/p>\n

He ended up ninth in Friday FP2 while Verstappen was fifth behind the Mercedes of George Russell and 20-year-old Italian Antonelli, who is poised to become the sport\u2019s youngest champion on Sunday if he finishes in the top nine.<\/p>\n

Verstappen, a five-time winner in Mexico, admitted: \u201cIt could have gone better, but we\u2019re not too far off and just have some fine tuning to do. No one has much grip here but it is the same for us all and nothing new.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Max Verstappen slammed his Red Bull stable-mate Liam Lawson as \u201cnot very smart\u201d after the pair clashed during…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":947088,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,817,813,816,85],"class_list":["post-947087","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/947087","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=947087"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/947087\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/947088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=947087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=947087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=947087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}