15/08/2020
NEWS STORY
The Barcelona stewards have deemed that no further action is needed following the incident involving Esteban Ocon and Kevin Magnussen in this morning's session.
Following the incident, which brought the session to a premature end, the stewards heard from both drivers, their team representatives and reviewed multiple angles of video evidence, radio calls to the drivers and telemetry data.
Ocon was on an out lap having just exited the pits, while Magnussen had just completed a timed lap.
Magnussen passed Ocon going from turn 2 to turn 3 but then began to slow. On the straight, halfway between turn 3 and turn 4, Ocon swerved to avoid a slowing Magnussen and crashed against the wall.
Discussing the incident with the drivers and examining the evidence, the stewards determined that Magnussen lifted and slowed using ERS harvesting; there was no use of the brakes that contributed to the accident. This was confirmed with telemetry.
Magnussen pulled gently off line, having been advised of following traffic on fast laps. At the same time Ocon was also moving to the right to let traffic by and was looking in his mirrors for the cars following.
When he subsequently looked forward, he was surprised to see Magnussen directly ahead of him and swerved to avoid a collision.
Both drivers and the Stewards agreed that it was an unfortunate accident and that neither driver was to blame. The Stewards therefore deemed to take no further action.