{"id":619832,"date":"2026-04-21T23:26:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T23:26:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/619832\/"},"modified":"2026-04-21T23:26:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T23:26:09","slug":"formula-1-liam-lawson-reacts-to-new-rule-tweaks-as-driver-pressure-tells-on-governing-body","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/619832\/","title":{"rendered":"Formula 1: Liam Lawson reacts to new rule tweaks as driver pressure tells on governing body"},"content":{"rendered":"

Before the season took a month-long hiatus due to the Bahrain and Saudi Arabian grands prix being cancelled owing to the war in Iran, those safety fears were realised in Japan.<\/a><\/p>\n

At Suzuka, Haas\u2019 Ollie Bearman was forced into evasive action behind Alpine\u2019s Franco Colapinto, and hit the wall with a force of 50G, having been driving at more than 300km\/h.<\/p>\n

Bearman was forced into the move after Colapinto suddenly experienced a 50km\/h loss of speed, as his car needed to recharge its battery. The English driver was cleared of any serious injury but was seen in clear pain, limping from the wreckage of his car. <\/p>\n

Speaking before the changes were announced, Lawson said that while drivers can tend to point out negative features in any set of regulations, avoiding what happened to Bearman should be the priority. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere are always going to be things that we want from the car,\u201d Lawson told media. \u201cAs racing drivers, we complain about everything, literally. That\u2019ll never change.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn the regulation side, I think the biggest thing right now is probably the safety aspect of it, especially with what we saw in Japan. That\u2019s something that we know we want to avoid, obviously, in the future, going forwards.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn the performance side, that\u2019s something that obviously will always evolve. If you look at the other regulations, the start of it, there\u2019s been a huge development over there for the five-year process that the regulations have been out, so I\u2019m sure these will obviously evolve and get faster.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m sure we\u2019ll find ways to make the cars nicer to drive, or I hope that we do. At the moment, especially in qualifying, we\u2019re trying to put the car on the limit and extract everything out of it. <\/p>\n

\u201cAt the moment, it feels like we\u2019re not able to do that. I think that\u2019s really the first focus for us that we would like out of the cars, but I think really that safety side probably comes first more than anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t the first time Lawson has warned of the effects of the new regulations, either. <\/p>\n

Speaking to the Herald in Melbourne before the 2026 season, the Racing Bulls driver admitted his anxiety over what impacts<\/a> the regulations would bring to this year\u2019s championship.<\/p>\n

Almost prophetically, Lawson was the first driver to experience the challenges in a race, when his battery failed to fire at lights out<\/a>, seeing him finish 13th after qualifying in eighth as the best driver outside the top four teams.<\/p>\n

Ironically, Lawson was arguably the biggest benefactor of Bearman\u2019s crash in Japan, as the resulting safety car gave him the ability for an effective free pit stop to consolidate his place in the top 10 and come home ninth.<\/p>\n

Formula One resumes in Miami at the start of next month. <\/p>\n

Alex Powell<\/a> is a sports journalist for the NZ Herald. He has been a sports journalist since 2016.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Before the season took a month-long hiatus due to the Bahrain and Saudi Arabian grands prix being cancelled…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":619833,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[3013,9008,3657,49,48,30515,6973,578,7792,9902,576,577,132196,9904,9903,10994,5268,1394,38003,19478,23809,13130,82,83616,696,232705],"class_list":{"0":"post-619832","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-formula-1","8":"tag-3013","9":"tag-as","10":"tag-body","11":"tag-ca","12":"tag-canada","13":"tag-come","14":"tag-driver","15":"tag-f1","16":"tag-first","17":"tag-formula","18":"tag-formula-1","19":"tag-formula1","20":"tag-governing","21":"tag-lawson","22":"tag-liam","23":"tag-must","24":"tag-new","25":"tag-on","26":"tag-pressure","27":"tag-reacts","28":"tag-rule","29":"tag-safety","30":"tag-sports","31":"tag-tells","32":"tag-to","33":"tag-tweaks"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=619832"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619832\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/619833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=619832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=619832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=619832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}