01/09/2018
NEWS STORY
It's fair to say that it's unlikely that Kevin Magnussen will be signing Fernando Alonso's leaving card when the Spaniard heads off to IndyCar, or wherever, at season end.
Following the incident in Q2 which saw both men called before the stewards, Magnussen hit out at the Spanish driver.
"I don't care to speculate why he did it. I think it was just pretty stupid and not necessary," said Magnussen, who has had a number of differences of opinion with the two-time world champion this year.
"He thought he could have the perfect slipstream and overtake me," he continued. "He gained, I don't know how many tenths, but you gain a lot if you do that.
"But I'm not going to let him pass me, and sacrifice my own lap," declared the feisty Dane. "No way. I know he thinks he's a god, but no way.
"We were kind of six or eight cars, in a bit of a group," said the Dane of the incident at Turn 1. "And at the exit of Ascari, Fernando was warming his brakes, I think, so not going fast.
"And I'm going fast, so just cruised past him. But then for some reason he decides to try and accelerate and get close to me, rather than create a gap, as everyone else is doing. Obviously he got a perfect slipstream and thought he could overtake into Turn 1, but I'd rather hang myself."
Having reviewed video evidence, positioning data and telemetry evidence, and heard from both drivers and their team representatives, the stewards determined that the incident did not specifically constitute unnecessary impeding by either driver, notwithstanding the fact that both drivers lost their lap.
{twittert=https://twitter.com/F1/status/1035926143361138688}
"Argh," shouted Alonso over the radio as the two drivers tripped over one another at the first chicane, both almost coming to a standstill. "I think, I think, yeh, Magnussen wanted to race into Turn 1. Hee, hee!"
"Looks like Magnussen screwed his own lap as well," the Spaniard was told in response.
"What the hell is Fernando doing," asked Magnussen over his radio.
Subsequently told of Alonso's comments, Magnussen told reporters. "He came to me after qualifying and laughed in my face.
"He outright disrespectful... I can't wait for him to retire. He talks about his laps being divine and whatnot. He literally thinks he's a god. It's pretty amusing."
"We were all running together at the end of the out-lap and with all that traffic one of the Haas cars decided to overtake and start the lap in the middle of all the cars that were more or less in position," argued Alonso. "So we started the lap together and we reached the first corner together and we ruined both our laps.
"There are many classes of drivers and then there's the Haas ones, who have the third or fourth-best car of the grid and are out in Q2," he added. "I got into Q2, which is one of the things that I wanted. It doesn't change much for me, I guess more for them, but it's fun, a lot of fun."
With the TV feed subsequently capturing Zak Brown in a somewhat heated conversation with Haas' Guenther Steiner, it's worth noting that Alonso starts tomorrow's race behind the Dane.