29/05/2024
NEWS STORY
Sergio Perez accuses Kevin Magnussen of "dangerous driving" as he and his boss, Christian Horner admit surprise at the Dane not being penalised for red flag incident.
With the field having got through Ste Devote without incident we all breathed a huge sigh of relief, however moments later there was carnage further up the hill heading to Beau Rivage.
In one fell swoop three cars were out of the race, the Red Bull of Sergio Perez and the Haas duo.
The race was red-flagged, but it was only just before the event had been restarted that the stewards declared it to be a first lap incident not worthy of further investigation.
Perez wasn't happy.
"I'm very surprised because the amount of damage and how dangerous the damage was, I'm fairly surprised," said the Mexican. "We need to ask for a reason why it's not been investigated because without an investigation we don't get a reason why it wasn't a penalty.
"I'm really surprised," he said again. "I think I got the 'lap one, let them race', but I think this was more dangerous driving just to keep it flat-out knowing that they were going to come contact at some point. I think that was some dangerous driving."
His boss agreed.
"I was surprised it wasn't investigated because it was quite a hefty incident," said Christian Horner. "Given he had a wheel up the inside in a part of the track that only ever narrows, you would have expected him to back out.
"Not only has he destroyed Checo's race and the car, he's also destroyed his teammates race, so not very clever."
Initial footage appeared to support the claim and many were surprised Magnussen wasn't penalised, a move that would have almost certainly seen the Dane face a race ban due to the amount of penalty points he has accrued over the last twelve months.
However, on-board footage showed Perez look to his right and seen Magnussen coming up on the outside, the footage causing Sky pundits Jenson Button and Anthony Davidson to change their opinion of who was at fault.
"I think I was with my front alongside Perez's rear, from the exit of Turn One on the run up to Turn Three," said Magnussen. "He goes towards the wall, the wall comes a little bit back towards the track, and I had nowhere to go.
"I don't know if he didn't see me or what," he added, "but I can't just disappear out of the blue. I made contact with the wall and him at the same time, and unfortunately we had a crash."
"If you see my on-board at no point, you see Kevin's car not even close to me, alongside me," insisted Perez, "and you could see that the wall is just getting closer and closer and to keep it flat-out.
"There was only one way out of it," he added. "It was either contact with my car, with the barrier, there were just simply no room for both cars. And at some point he had to realise that. I've been in that location and many times when you are the car behind, you just have to realise that it's time to back off, you know, before things get closer to you."
Asked if he thought the stewards had been lenient because of the impending ban, Perez said: "I don't want to be getting involved in that. I don't think he really thinks about it, you know, about the outcome. You sometimes find yourself in a position and you have to take a very quick decision to say, 'OK, there's only one way of it and it's going to be contact'.
"I think we've got more important things to focus on. It's been a very frustrating weekend, we are super frustrated."
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