Magnussen started fifth in Canada, alongside teammate Mick Schumacher, after a strong qualifying session for Haas . However, his hopes of finishing in the points were dashed early on after a brush with Lewis Hamilton on lap one damaged his front wing.
The Dane ‘s right endplate hung off the side of the wing for several laps, something the chasing driver Esteban Ocon quickly noticed.
Although Haas assured Magnussen that damage had “very little effect” on pace, Ocon thought differently. And when Alpine notified him, the Frenchman said on the radio: “Yes, I see that it is holding, it is going to fall. If it comes off, it is going to hit me full in the face.”
Knowing that the FIA would listen to him at race control, Ocon was clearly pushing for Magnussen to be shown the black and orange flag and have to return to the pits for repairs, which would ultimately occur on lap 7.
Video: this was the touch between Lewis Hamilton and Kevin Magnussen at the start of the Canadian GP 2022 Formula 1
Speaking to the press, Magnussen was upset that he thought Ocon had been able to influence race control, revealing that the Frenchman had even approached him to joke about how he had gotten his competitor out of the way.
“I just spoke to Ocon now and he was joking about how he told the FIA it was very bad,” Magnussen said. “If you know you can influence the FIA like that, you’re going to do it, right? Which he did in a way, fair play…”
“But they have to let us drive with shit like that, which was nothing. I just had a little touch, nothing serious. I touched my front wing a bit and they told me to pit.”
Magnussen, who had already raised concerns about stewards’ inconsistency the previous week at the Azerbaijan GP, says the black and orange flag he was shown at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve was another example of how difficult it is for drivers and the teams know what the rules are.
“The car was fine,” he noted. “The front wing was safe, it hadn’t broken.”
“Let’s remember last year’s Saudi Arabia race, Lewis Hamilton won the race with half a front wing, which I think is correct. We will race if we can.”
“It seems that suddenly it’s very different. In Monaco they didn’t give us the start because it started to drizzle, and then here they call me to the pits because I have a scratch on the front wing.
Having to change strategy so early ruined Magnussen’s race, as the team failed to make an ambitious plan work on hard tyres, and the Dane dropped to 17th.
“We tried to do the rest of the race with just one set of hards, which we knew was going to be tough,” he added.
“You keep trying to fight to get into the points, you never know what’s going to happen, so you push as hard as you can. This time nothing came of it, but we’ll try again next time.”
To complete Haas ‘ nightmare at the Canadian GP, Mick Schumacher retired eighth with a power unit problem, meaning the German is still out of points.
