Colapinto narrowly avoids a collision with Lawson at the start: "I don't know what happened."

If the first departure of the 2026 season of Formula 1 The race went smoothly, but the situation could have changed very quickly at the back of the pack. Liam Lawson, who qualified eighth, had a terrible start, his Racing Bulls only beginning to unleash its power after a few seconds. Behind him, the pack, which had made a much better start, was doing its best to avoid him.

Having qualified sixteenth, Franco Colapinto caught sight of the New Zealander at the last moment, moving much more slowly than his AlpineThanks to a brilliant reflex, the Argentinian managed to slip his A526 between Lawson and the wall, and the Racing Bulls then took off for good.

INCREDIBLE 🤯

Lawson almost stalled at the start and Colapinto almost ran into him! That was close… #AusGP #F1 pic.twitter.com/gDWCLftOjm

— CANAL+ F1® (@CanalplusF1) March 8, 2026

Interviewed by the official Formula 1 website after the Grand Prix, the Argentinian still seemed impressed by the fact that his Grand Prix could have ended just seconds after the lights went out, and in a cloud of carbon fiber.

“I’m glad I made it through the start because it was really close with Lawson. After that, I’m glad I was able to finish the race; honestly, it was extremely close. After the penalty (a ten-second stop-and-go because a mechanic touched theAlpine After the 15-second signal on the grid (Editor's note), the idea was to gather data and learn as much as possible. We were more competitive than in qualifying, and we'll try to come back stronger in China.

For his part, Liam Lawson couldn't explain the reason for his particularly poor start, the only one on the grid. While other cars, like the Mercedes Benzarrived with their batteries quite depleted, the Racing Bulls did not seem able to accelerate for several seconds after the start, despite the new procedures put in place by the FIA, including a "pre-start" period, allowing drivers to accelerate to spin their turbos and eliminate as much lag time as possible.

“I have no idea what happened at the start. The lights went out very quickly, but I think my reaction time and procedures were good. The car just didn't move, I lost all the power, and I had to wait five seconds before it came back; it was quite frustrating.”

From that moment on, it was difficult for number 30 to come back, especially since his energy deployment system car was up to his old tricks: "The pace wasn't too bad, but we had some issues during the race. Every time I got close to another car, our energy management wasn't working well, and I was losing power. There's a lot of learning for everyone with these new cars, and we had to fight against some problems during the race. The pace was pretty good."

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