Liam Lawson stunned after 'killing' F1 rival's car in freak incident

Liam Lawson was left stunned after being told he had effectively "killed" Nico Hulkenberg's Audi in the Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix - without even touching the car.

Hulkenberg retired on Lap 29 in Barcelona with an apparent engine issue, but speaking after the race, he revealed a freakish series of events involving Lawson's Racing Bulls machine and a gravel stone flicked up by the New Zealander.

"He put a wheel in the gravel exit of Turn 12, kicked up a lot of gravel, and that gravel somehow, one stone pulled the emergency trigger on the left of the roll hoop," Hulkenberg told media, including RacingNews365. 

"It just killed the car. It was a total switch-off and game over.

"The car was dead, and then obviously I just coasted into the pit lane. There was nothing left; it was just a complete shutdown.

"I've never seen or heard about this, to be honest, in my career. It is very unlucky with the timing, as at the end, you see two cars dropping out [Kimi Antonelli and Charles Leclerc], and it is somehow that the racing gods don't want us to score [points] yet."

Asked about his take on the situation, Lawson, who finished in eighth place for a fifth points finish from the first seven races, after a 10 second penalty to Franco Colapinto for ignoring yellow flags dropped the Alpine from eighth on the road to 10th, expressed his shock at the freak nature of the incident.

"Are you serious?" he told media when told about Hulkenberg's incident.

"No way, oh, that is so unfortunate, and obviously I had no idea, and if I could perfectly aim for something like that, it would be quite impressive.

"But I had no idea, I just knew that he dropped out."