Liam Lawson has cast doubt over the legality of Charles Leclerc's late overtake on him for seventh place in the Sao Paulo Grand Prix.
On lap 69 of 71 in the wet conditions, Leclerc biffed Lawson out of the way at Turn 12 to climb the hill, with the right-front tyre making contact with Lawson's left-rear, forcing the New Zealander wide.
This then gave Leclerc better momentum up the hill, and although Lawson stayed ahead into Turn 1, the Ferrari driver got ahead for seventh place on the road into Turn 4 on the next lap after a thrilling wheel-to-wheel battle.
Lawson finished eighth, but could capitalise if Leclerc is handed any penalty, as he was 1.816s behind over the line.
Leclerc has been called to the stewards regarding the incident for allegedly causing a collision, with Lawson saying the move reminded him of Leclerc's move on Alex Albon in the 2017 GP2 race at Abu Dhabi - where Leclerc did a 'bump and run' on Albon into the hairpin before the long back straight, using this momentum to get ahead for the win.
Reflecting, Lawson branded the move as Leclerc's "specialty."
"I think it was his wing which hit my tyre, so I think we got really lucky," Lawson said of Leclerc's move to media, including RacingNews365.
"I feel like it was exactly like his GP2 move on Albon in Abu Dhabi years ago; he did the same kind of thing, so maybe it is his speciality.
"I don't know if it is legal or not, and we'll go and review it, but it was a good battle overall."
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Potential Antonelli attack
Fast-starting from third, Lawson initially felt he could have attacked leader Kimi Antonelli and taken the lead of a grand prix for the first time.
"It was a crazy race, honestly, I had a really good start, good grip into Turn 1 and made a place up and was thinking I might try and attack Kimi at some point in the lap," he said.
"But once the pace stabilised, they're a lot quicker than us, and we started to fall back, we were damaging the tyre quite a lot more than them, and then the pace in the dry was okay.
"At the end, I tried to keep Charles before, we had some contact into Turn 12 , ended up losing the place."
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