Kevin Magnussen saw his Monaco Grand Prix come to an end before he’d even completed a single sector. After a heavy crash involving Sergio Perez and teammate Nico Hulkenberg, he was climbing out of the car.
Magnussen and Hulkenberg had started at the back of the grid after they were expelled from qualifying for a technical infringement. Perez was down there too, having suffered a Q1 elimination in a major upset.
The Danish driver saw an opportunity to challenge the Red Bull and kept his nose in on the ascent up Beau Rivage towards Massenet. When Perez moved over to the right, he was sent into a spin that collected Hulkenberg and scattered debris all over the race track.
The stewards decided that it was a racing incident, in keeping with their predominant reluctance to hand out sanctions for first-lap incidents. In this case, it was a particularly big call.
Magnussen came into the race on 10 penalty points, just two away from a race ban. If they’d decided he was at fault, he could have been watching the Canadian GP from the sidelines.
Red Bull may feel aggrieved by the eventual verdict. They’ve been left with up to £2.6m worth of damage, which could be a significant issue given the need to comply with F1’s budget cap.
Tim Coronel livid that Kevin Magnussen escaped Monaco GP penalty
Speaking to nl.motorsport.com, Dutch driver Tim Coronel slammed Magnussen. He says it was never realistic to expect to pass Perez in that particular situation.
But he was just as angry with the stewards. He’s baffled that they refused to hand the Haas man a penalty, accusing them of failing to ‘understand what car racing is’.
“As a driver you know that you should not sit there,” he said. “And by that I mean Magnussen. This isn’t possible, it’s impossible.
“You can’t even overtake there, so why even try on a corner. We’ve seen that, right? You know that it [the order] has actually already been determined in qualifying and that you can possibly only win in the pit lane?
“I certainly don’t agree with the race management. They don’t understand what car racing is. I’m really furious about it, I really don’t understand how you can determine it this way. I think they are a bunch of guys who have no understanding of the situation on the track.”
Martin Brundle shares ‘prophetic’ chat with Haas mechanics before Sergio Perez crash
Coronel certainly isn’t the only driver to point the blame squarely at Magnussen. Ex-F1 driver Ralf Schumacher says a ‘normal person’ would never have attempted to squeeze through the gap in question.
His former competitor David Coulthard believes that the 31-year-old would have been facing a suspension had it not been the first lap. He’s ‘really surprised’ that there wasn’t a full-scale investigation regardless.
Martin Brundle revealed that mechanics at Haas told him they were relieved to be on the grid after their Saturday disqualification. But the Sky Sports F1 pundit pointed out that they could avoid any incidents if they started from the pit lane, ‘which turned out to be prophetic’.
External opinions may not bother Magnussen all that much. What really matters is what Haas think of him ahead of the expiry of his contract.
It recently emerged that the former McLaren driver has yet to convince team principal Ayao Komatsu to hand him a new deal. And after his controversial Monaco move led to a double DNF for the American team, they may have even more questions over the wisdom of an extension.
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