Liam Lawson didn’t make it to the end of the first lap of Formula One’s British Grand Prix, and was forced to retire after crashing at Silverstone.
Having started 15th, Lawson was hit at turn five by Haas’ Esteban Ocon. Ocon clipped Lawson’s rear left tyre, which sent the Racing Bulls car off the track, and meant severe damage to the floor of his car.
And while he was able to keep his car out of the barriers, the damage sustained meant the Kiwi’s Racing Bulls car was left unable to continue as a safety car was triggered.
Ocon’s move came after he was forced wide by Red Bull’s Yuki Tsunoda, with the chain reaction it caused ultimately meant the end for Lawson, just a week after his career-best finish at the Austrian Grand Prix.
“Who the hell was that? I’m out,” Lawson was heard saying on his radio. “Whoever that Haas was next to me, dude, he just drove straight into the side of me.”
“We went next to each other through [turns] three and four,” he added post-race.
“I tried to give space through five, and then I just got a massive hit. I don’t know what happened.
“It’s a shame, we should have had a very good car today. In a race like this, anything can happen.
“It’s an opportunity we’ve now missed [out] on. I wasn’t really trying to be aggressive. I had a really good start, a path opened up for us.
“I just wanted to survive the first lap. I still have no idea what happened.”
The mitigation of Tsunoda’s move towards Ocon saw the French driver escape any further sanction from race directors.
Amid the chaos both in front and underneath him, McLaren’s Lando Norris claimed his fourth victory of the season, as teammate Oscar Piastri faltered to take second.
On lap 22, and leading at the time, Piastri was judged to have slowed too much at a safety car restart, which in turn forced Max Verstappen into evasive action.
For his part, Piastri was hit with a 10 second time penalty, before Verstappen spun not long after in the wet conditions, on his way to finishing fifth having started on pole.
Norris’ win cuts Piastri’s lead at the top of the drivers championship to just eight points, as McLaren’s lead atop the constructors championship now sits at 238 points.
It was Sauber’s Nico Hulkenberg, though, who gave arguably the biggest story of the day. Holding the record for the most race starts without a podium - 238 - the 37-year-old claimed his maiden podium in Formula One, driving home to take third place.
That result takes Sauber from ninth to seventh in the constructors championship, leapfrogging Racing Bulls, Haas and Aston Martin in the process.
So chaotic were conditions, five drivers were ruled out of the race before the halfway stage on lap 26.
Ironically, Lawson had remained on track on intermediate tyres, with the Silverstone track wet after rain overnight and throughout the morning, he’d have almost certainly avoided any major incident on the opening lap.
To make matters even worse for Racing Bulls, Lawson’s teammate, Isack Hadjar, was also forced out of the race on lap 18.
With rain falling and poor visibility, Hadjar ran into the back of Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli, and was sent into the barrier at turn nine - with considerably more damage than his teammate.
Five laps later, Antonelli was also forced to retire with damage sustained in the collision with Hadjar.
After a formation lap behind the safety car, Racing Bulls made the call to pit Hadjar and switch his intermediate tyres for mediums.
But even with fewer cars involved in the opening corners, given a train of drivers in the pits, the conditions were still treacherous enough to trigger the incident that led to the Kiwi’s collision.
Lawson wasn’t the only driver to struggle early on, Sauber’s Gabriel Bortoleto was forced to retire on lap six after leaving the track and suffering damage.
Like Lawson, Bortoleto also arrived at Silverstone off the back of his career-best in Austria, as he finished eighth for his maiden Formula One points.
Alpine’s Franco Colapinto, meanwhile, didn’t even make the start line, thanks to damage he suffered in qualifying on Sunday.
Did not finish: Kimi Antonelli - Mercedes, Isack Hadjar - Racing Bulls, Gabriel Bortoleto - Sauber, Liam Lawson - Racing Bulls, Franco Colapinto - Alpine
Alex Powell is a sports journalist for the NZ Herald. He has been a sports journalist since 2016.