02/05/2018
NEWS STORY
In the wake of the incident during Sunday's Azerbaijan that earned the Dane a 10s time penalty for causing a collision, comments made by the Haas driver earlier in the weekend reappeared in a totally new context.
At the re-start following the second safety car period, the Dane and Pierre Gasly touched twice as they battled for tenth position.
Magnussen was hit with the 10s penalty and 2 penalty points - thereby bringing his total up to 8 - after the race stewards deemed that he "moved unpredictably and unnecessarily to the left and collided" with Gasly, finding the Dane "wholly to blame for the collision".
In the aftermath, Gasly, who had complained about the Haas driver following an incident in FP1, labelled Magnussen "the most dangerous guy I have ever raced with".
"He literally put me in the wall at 300 km/h at the restart and completely ruined the race," said the Frenchman. "I would have been in the worst case P10 at the last restart, so this is one thing.
"The Safety Car came out, we pitted and were P11," he explained. "I knew points were on the table. I was going to pass him just before the Safety Car line. I went on the side, and he just put me in the wall right in the middle and took half of my floor out. Both my front wheels went in the air, broke my right mirror and bent my steering as well. After that I was just trying to survive until the end of the race. There was almost no point to race after that."
Shortly after, Magnussen was quoted by Reuters as saying: "I don't like compromises. I will give everything... I will die in the car. I won't hold back."
Tonight however, he took to social media to clarify the comment and the context in which it was originally made.
"The interview was done before the race in Baku," he wrote, "and is not minded on the incident with Pierre in the race. I didn't squeeze Pierre on purpose and have apologised to him many times over the incident.
"I don't want to die in a race car," he added. "I was expressing my willingness to give absolutely everything in my power to achieve success. Success to me obviously isn't having accidents or getting penalties but finishing races in as high a position as possible.
"I am living my childhood dream of racing in Formula 1 and I've put my whole life into achieving that dream. It is only natural for me to be giving absolutely everything I've got, to achieve success in racing and the day I no longer do that I will retire from racing immediately."