A boring race on paper (and then in reality), was livened up by an unexpected and terrible accident shortly after the start of the Monaco Grand Prix and Kevin Magnussen was the unexpected protagonist. But in a negative way.
After leaving the Sainte Devote, Magnussen tried to overtake Sergio Perez on the outside of the climb before the Casino, but the dynamics of the Dane’s maneuver triggered a terrible accident which saw the Red Bull number 11 crumble in the worst possible way, while the survival cell remains intact.
Fortunately all the drivers involved escaped unharmed, but it was logical to expect an investigation into the maneuver carried out by the Haas driver. This did not arrive and, at the end of the race, Magnussen stated that everything that happened was the result of Perez’s maneuver. Words that caused a sensation.
“Clearly Perez didn’t leave me space, but I thought he was going to leave it to me. I had a good part of my front, well… my whole front wheel was in front of his rear wheel. So I expected him to leave room for a car on his right, especially because he had no one inside. On his left he had free track. So he pressed me against the wall.”
“It’s not nice to see our cars involved in the same accident. It’s disgusting. I mean, it’s a shitty situation. Really shitty.”
“Do I think it’s right that the commissioners didn’t penalize me? It’s better that I don’t talk about this topic. But I would have been very surprised if they had penalized me.”
Sergio Perez had a completely different opinion, and it couldn’t be otherwise. The Mexican, who saw himself hooked by the front left wheel of Magnussen’s Haas, is incredulous about the race commissioners’ failure to investigate the Dane’s maneuver.
“If you look at the onboard of my car, at no point can you see Magnussen’s car next to mine. You can only see how close the wall has gotten. At some point Kevin must have realized this.”
“I mean, when you’re the car behind, at a certain point you have to realize that you can’t go any further before the wall and the car in front get too close. I’m very surprised that the accident wasn’t put under investigation both for the amount of damage reported and the danger of it, I’m really surprised.”
Perez’s accident in Monaco
“In the position Magnussen was in, it was clear that there would only be one way to end this: either hit the wall or hit my car, on the right side. He shouldn’t have been there.”
“How does he want me to give him space if he’s not even side by side? There’s a point where you see the wall coming at you and you have to slow down. It’s happened to me many times too, and at a certain point you just have to slow down to prevent all this from happening. He could have chosen to slow down, but he chose contact.”
Nico Hulkenberg’s comment could not be missed, as he was an unfortunate co-protagonist of the accident but only because he found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time. Innocent, Nico was hit by Perez’s RB20 which had been out of control for some time and was destroyed in the first impact with the barriers.
“It was a really stupid incident between Kevin and Checo. I don’t know if Checo saw Kevin, but he should have left more space. At the same time, I think Kevin was very optimistic about the position he had just before hitting Perez. At that point the track becomes narrower.”
After the three versions of the riders involved in the crash that stopped the race after just half a lap, it is worth carefully analyzing what happened between Magnussen and Perez after the Sainte Devote.
GuanYu Zhou’s camera car, which followed the three drivers involved in the accident, shows how Magnussen – well before hitting Perez’s right rear wheel, hit the wall on the right with the right rear wheel of the Mexican’s RB20. At that point the VF-24 number 20 hit the single-seater in front, triggering the terrible carambola from which, fortunately, all three pilots involved escaped unharmed.
Magnussen’s onboard confirms how, after the impact with the wall, the Haas moved slightly to the left, hitting Perez. The two cars were far from side by side, so much so that the contact occurred between the rear tire of the Red Bull and the front tire of the Haas.
We know that during the first lap the marshals have been – for some time now – much more permissive with regards to contacts on the track, but it is surprising that the contact between the Alpine team shortly after the Portier (with an attached penalty for Ocon) was investigated even though it occurred a few seconds after the crash in the first sector.
For Magnussen, however, a danger averted, considering the only 2 points left on the license. The joker was played in Monaco, he will have to be much more careful already from Canada.
#Haas #Magnussen #pardoned #blames #Perez
