Lawson explained that the incident with Alonso taught him a lot.

      Liam Lawson explained how the penalty he received for colliding with Fernando Alonso near the end of Saturday’s sprint in Miami helped him make sense of the directives governing drivers’ conduct on track and the nature of the sanctions for breaching those rules.

      In the closing laps several drivers were vying for eighth place — the last position that awards a championship point — and the New Zealand driver for Racing Bulls attacked Alonso but, finding himself on the outside of the very tight Turn 11, clipped the two-time world champion’s Aston Martin.

      As Lawson explained: “He came out of the pits on cold tyres, and I was staying with him and waiting for an opportunity to use DRS. The contact with his car was unintentional, but unfortunately it ended in a crash.”

      Unlike Alonso, who retired immediately, Liam was able to continue and finished eighth, but he was later given a five-second penalty which dropped him to 13th in the classification. He was also handed a penalty point on his super licence, and the incident prompted further debate about the rules, after which the FIA decided to issue additional clarifications.

      “I think, at the start of the season, after getting into a couple of incidents, I began to understand these rules better,” Lawson told RacingNews365. “One of them stood out — the one in Miami when I tried to pass Alonso on the outside and felt I had been left no room on the track.

      I remember at the time I felt I shouldn’t be punished, but when you start reading the directives in force this year and work through them, you find that everything happened exactly as written. Drivers need to have a good understanding of what the rules say, and after that episode I learned a lot.

      After that I already knew that if I overtake someone, the front axle of my car has to be at a certain point. And if someone overtakes me, then if the rules say I’m not obliged to leave the other driver space, why should I do it and allow myself to be passed? It makes no sense…”

      Perhaps Lawson and other drivers will be better versed in the FIA’s current directives by the end of the season, but that doesn’t mean on-track incidents won’t spark fresh debate. That was the case after the São Paulo Grand Prix, where Oscar Piastri received a 10-second penalty for contact with Kimi Antonelli’s Mercedes, and many considered the stewards’ verdict overly harsh.