Kevin Magnussen made a strong start from eighth on the grid at the Spanish Grand Prix, allowing him to be parallel with Lewis Hamilton as they entered Turn 4 on the opening lap.
The one from Haas tried to overtake the Briton on the outside of the corner, but the two drivers touched and Magnussen went into the gravel. Hamilton’s Mercedes was damaged and fell to the back of the grid.
That ended any hope for Magnussen of fighting for points in Spain, as he spent the rest of the race stuck in the last three positions.
Shortly after the crash, Magnussen radioed his track engineer, cursing his luck, saying: “Lewis knew what he was doing, he rammed me.”
The stewards noted the incident, but felt that no further action or investigation was necessary. After the race, when asked about the meaning of his comment against Hamilton, Magnussen said it was “nothing”.
“[The comment] was hot,” Magnussen explained. “You say whatever, and then you go and see it. And often when you see it, it’s a different story.”
The pilot admitted in the ‘corralito’ with the media that he had not yet seen the incident with Hamilton again, so it was still not clear who had been to blame for the collision.
“You’re always pissed off in the moment, but I’ll watch it again, see what happens and then I’ll move on,” Magnussen said.
Hamilton, the other implicated, also expressed his opinion about the incident. The Mercedes driver considered that he was “on a normal line” in the corner and that Magnussen “came out of nowhere” and “hit” him.
“It came from behind and then hit the side of my car,” Hamilton said. “I can’t say anything about it, it is what it is.”
The incident contributed to Haas failing to score points in Spain, as Mick Schumacher dropped to 14th in the closing stages of the race, after being overtaken by several cars going three stops.
Magnussen said Haas “had a faster car than a lot of those who scored points in this race” but was encouraged that the team performed so well despite not bringing any updates to Barcelona. “The pace of the car has been good this weekend.”
“Even though most of the world brought updates, we were able to keep them. So there are a lot of positives that we will bring to Monaco,” concluded the Dane.
