Fire, Flip, Broken Suspension and a Snapped Gearbox: The Full Story Behind the Four Miami GP 2026 Retirements

Four drivers never saw the chequered flag in Miami. Hulkenberg fought Audi’s mechanical curse all weekend long. Lawson suffered a gearbox failure that sent Gasly airborne. Hadjar arrived at the race from the pit lane after a technical disqualification and paid a heavy price in the opening lap chaos. Here is the complete account of each retirement.

The 2026 Miami Grand Prix delivered chaos from its opening lap and did not relent until the first quarter of the race had destroyed four different campaigns in four entirely different ways. While Kimi Antonelli was building his third consecutive victory from the front, behind him the race was consuming drivers with a ruthlessness that felt almost theatrical. Each retirement had its own cause, its own context, and its own story worth telling in full.

Gasly flying upside down over the Turn 17 tarmac. Hadjar pounding the steering wheel with both fists. Lawson calmly explaining a gearbox that simply ceased to exist at the worst possible moment. And Hulkenberg, who had survived a car fire on Saturday, watching his Audi tell him no once more on the biggest stage of the weekend. Four stories. Four retirements. One unifying truth: Miami 2026 had absolutely no interest in rewarding drivers starting from behind.

THE FOUR MIAMI GP 2026 RETIREMENTS

10 Pierre Gasly / Alpine
Lap 6 / Collision Flip / Turn 17 — Lap 6

The image of the entire race weekend. Pierre Gasly had made an outstanding start from ninth on the grid, clawing his way up to around seventh position into Turn 1 when Verstappen’s 360-degree spin directly ahead forced the Frenchman to stand on the brakes, surrendering everything he had gained in an instant. Reabsorbed by the midfield pack, Gasly found himself running behind Liam Lawson as the field settled on Lap 5. Heading into Turn 17 on Lap 6, Gasly took the outside line to attempt a pass on the Racing Bulls driver.

What happened next shocked the entire paddock. Lawson arrived at the apex and, at the precise moment he pressed the brake pedal, his Racing Bulls suffered a catastrophic gearbox failure that eliminated all engine braking from the car. The Racing Bulls did not slow as expected. The front of Lawson’s car clipped the left rear of Gasly’s Alpine, and physics took over with brutal efficiency: the Alpine was launched into the air, completed a full 360-degree roll upside down at height, and landed partially on top of the tyre bundle alongside the barrier wall. The safety structures of the 2026 car did their job. Gasly climbed out and walked away unhurt.

“It was definitely a scary feeling being flipped over in a Formula 1 car so I am glad it wasn’t too serious and I was able to climb out and walk away. Frustratingly, my start was quite good, probably too good in the end.”Pierre Gasly — Post-race statement, formula1.com

30 Liam Lawson – Racing Bulls
Lap 6 / Gearbox Failure / Collision Damage — Lap 6

Lawson had actually delivered a remarkable opening lap from eleventh on the grid, climbing several positions and finding himself well inside the top ten before the accident unfolded. He was in recovery mode and managing a difficult car balance, defending his position as Gasly lined up the pass on the outside at Turn 17. At the moment the New Zealander pressed the brake pedal for that corner on Lap 6, his Racing Bulls gearbox failed completely, stripping the car of all engine braking in an instant.

Without that deceleration, the Racing Bulls car swept wide and onto the trajectory of Gasly’s Alpine, triggering the dramatic aerial flip. The collision left Lawson’s own car with too much structural damage to continue. He brought the car to the pits on Lap 6 and the team retired it. The incident was investigated by the race stewards, though Lawson was unambiguous in explaining that the root cause was a mechanical failure completely outside his control, not a driving error or misjudgement of the braking zone.

“I went to brake for the last corner, and when I hit the brakes, we had a gearbox failure. It’s a shame, it’s taken out Pierre, which is not good. Hard luck.”Liam Lawson — Post-race statement, crash.net

6 Isack Hadjar / Red Bull
Lap 6 / Crash — Suspension / Turn 11 / Turn 14-15 — Lap 6

Isack Hadjar’s Miami weekend was a case study in accumulated misfortune that deserves to be told from its beginning rather than just its end. The French Algerian driver had qualified an impressive ninth on Saturday, demonstrating that the heavily upgraded Red Bull RB22 had genuine pace. But during post-qualifying technical scrutineering, the FIA’s technical delegate Jo Bauer discovered that the left and right-hand side floorboards on Hadjar’s car were protruding 2 millimetres outside the permitted reference volume, breaching Article C3.5.5 of the technical regulations. Red Bull did not contest the finding and did not appeal.

To make matters significantly worse, Red Bull subsequently changed the power unit and control electronics unit on the car under parc ferme conditions, drawing a further penalty that demoted Hadjar from the back of the grid all the way to a pit lane start. Team principal Laurent Mekies issued a full apology to the driver. Starting from the pit lane in the race, Hadjar pushed aggressively through the opening laps in a recovery mission, until on Lap 6 he clipped the inside wall at Turn 11, breaking the front suspension. The damaged car then drove into the barrier hard at the Turn 14 and 15 chicane complex. The images of Hadjar striking his steering wheel in frustration as he parked the car told the story of an entire weekend in a single gesture.

Red Bull accepted full responsibility for the technical error. Team principal Laurent Mekies stated: “We made a mistake and we respect the decision of the Stewards. No performance advantage was intended nor gained from this error. As a team, we apologise to Isack, and to our fans and partners.
“Laurent Mekies, Red Bull Racing Team Principal — formula1.com

27 Nico Hülkenberg / Audi
Lap ~27 / Mechanical Failure / Mechanical Retirement — Under Safety Car

Of the four retirements on Sunday, Hulkenberg’s carried the heaviest symbolic weight. The German driver had already suffered a dramatic and spectacular fire on Saturday, when flames burst from the rear section of his Audi R26 during the reconnaissance lap before the Sprint race. Hülkenberg was forced to stop the car immediately and exit the cockpit with the car alight. The Audi team worked through the night to prepare the machinery for Sunday’s main race. Racing director Allan McNish confirmed the team had spotted an anomaly before the car even left the garage on Saturday and believed it had been resolved, only for the fire to develop on the way to the grid.

Despite all those efforts, Audi’s reliability demons returned during Sunday’s Grand Prix. When the safety car was deployed following the Gasly and Hadjar incidents, Hülkenberg used the neutralisation to pit, at which point the team made the decision to retire the car in the face of a new mechanical problem that made it either impossible or unsafe to continue. There was no crash, no collision, no error. Just the Audi telling its driver, once again, that this was not his weekend. Hülkenberg, visibly drained by the experience, told media afterwards that the team needed to keep their heads up and described Miami as a character-building occasion. It was a generous reading of a thoroughly difficult 48 hours.

“We need to keep our head up, keep digging deep. It has been a character building weekend, but that’s motorsport. We keep learning and we move forward.”Nico Hülkenberg — Post-race statement, formula1.com

2026 MIAMI GP RETIREMENTS SUMMARY TABLE

Four retirements. Four entirely different stories. And a striking coincidence in their timing that concentrated almost all the destruction into a single lap. Which of these four DNFs do you think was the most painful or the most avoidable, and do you believe Lawson deserves a penalty for the Gasly incident even though the root cause was mechanical? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.

Sources: formula1.com, crash.net, racingnews365.com, motorsport.com, the-race.com, autosport.com, speedcafe.com, gpfans.com