‘Zero visibility’ – Isack Hadjar explains Kimi Antonelli crash as Liam Lawson rues missed opportunity for Racing Bulls at Silverstone

Racing Bulls had a day to neglect on the British Grand Prix, with each Liam Lawson and Isack Hadjar crashing out on a day the place a lot of their midfield rivals scored massive factors.

Lawson was the primary to exit the race after he collided with Esteban Ocon’s Haas on the opening lap, in what the stewards deemed a racing incident. Whereas Ocon was capable of proceed, the New Zealander was compelled into instant retirement.

Hadjar had prevented a lot of the opening lap chaos by pitting on the finish of the Formation Lap for slick tyres, together with George Russell, Charles Leclerc, Ollie Bearman and Gabriel Bortoleto – a transfer that was quickly confirmed to be the fallacious technique name.

When the race got here again collectively after a Security Automobile interval, Hadjar discovered himself behind the Mercedes of Kimi Antonelli however, simply because the Security Automobile peeled off the monitor and racing resumed, the rookie barreled into the again of the Mercedes, retiring instantly.

“Racing in these powerful situations signifies that it’s all the time somewhat little bit of a chance on the market,” Hadjar defined following his collision. “Initially of the race, I used to be following Charles [Leclerc] and it appeared we had a great tempo; we have been on the identical technique, but it surely wasn’t the proper one.

“Throughout the laps we spent behind the Security Automobile, I couldn’t see a lot as a result of heavy rain and the tyre temperature dropped.

“After the restart, I want I might have possibly had a bit extra margin, however after I noticed the pink gentle of the again of Kimi’s automotive, it was already too late as there was simply zero visibility. Fortunately, I’m okay.”

The incident additionally despatched Antonelli into retirement as nicely, with each drivers rising unscathed from what might have been a nasty crash.

Lawson was additionally thankfully unhurt from his collision, and was left rueing what he believed was a missed alternative for the workforce at Silverstone.

“It’s a disgrace, I feel we might have had an excellent automotive at present and clearly in a race like this, something can occur,” he mentioned.

“It’s simply a possibility that we’ve now missed out on, and I wasn’t actually making an attempt to be aggressive, I had a very good begin, a path type of opened up for us and I simply needed to outlive the primary lap.”

Following the British Grand Prix and their double DNF, Racing Bulls have dropped from sixth to seventh in the standings, overtaken by Kick Sauber, and are actually on equal factors with Aston Martin, who scored with each automobiles.