Kevin Magnussen says it was his mistake which caused his crash during the second practice session for the Australian Grand Prix.
The McLaren driver went off on his fifth lap of the session and damaged the front-left of the car, preventing him from doing any more running today. It came after technical problems limited him to seven laps in the first session.
“We didn’t get too many laps in FP1,” he said. “Then I went off and damaged the car in the afternoon, so I didn’t get much running under my belt in FP2 either.”
“I tried to push my braking point into turn six, then lost the rear on entry,” he explained. “The car still made the apex, but then it snapped at a difficult time. I couldn’t avoid hitting the wall.”
“It was a driver mistake. It’s a shame, but these things happen – my bad – and life goes on.”
However Magnussen drew some encouragement from the performance of the McLaren. “The balance and feeling of the car feels good,” he said.
“We’re not as fast as we’d like, but we’re not too far off the optimum balance in the car. Clearly, there’s a lot more to come, but it’s definitely a good baseline.”
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OEL F1 (@oel-f1)
13th March 2015, 10:03
The last thing McLaren needed was a driver error preventing them from running!
Richard
13th March 2015, 10:05
You mean in the same way Nando did?
Nacho
14th March 2015, 0:07
Please, we still dont know what happened to Alonso
wificats (@wificats)
13th March 2015, 10:34
Oh dear, Kevin. That’s really not what he needed to be doing, McLaren desperately needed laps on the car, and he pranged it. The higher-ups are hardly going to be feeling like they made a mistake dropping him for this season. A shame, as I really like the guy.
Kelvin
13th March 2015, 10:58
Hardly any worse then his replacement for this season I suppose.
If we are just hiring car wreckers, Magnussen is by far teh cheapest.
Nase (@)
13th March 2015, 12:21
So you’re casually branding Alonso a ‘car wrecker’ on account of him having his first encounter with a wall in 5 (?) years? Wow, mate, just wow.
Wesley (@)
13th March 2015, 23:33
Alonso is not a ‘car wrecker’. Show some respect. The man is top tier!
Bullfrog (@bullfrog)
13th March 2015, 10:59
At least he wasn’t concussed.
Dmitry (@)
13th March 2015, 11:04
I think he can crash in the McLaren box during the race to make his statement about the team politics as loud as possible.
dragoll (@dragoll)
13th March 2015, 11:10
While it clearly is a driver fault, one of his own admission, I think it should be highlighted that Magnussen has had very little running in the 2015 car prior to today. Add to it, the pressure he is placing upon himself to show the team what he is capable of while Alonso is healing. I think put those 2 things together and perhaps KMag is being a little hard on himself, hopefully he can pick himself up, dust himself off, and keep it clean for the rest of the weekend and build up the confidence.
The Blade Runner (@)
13th March 2015, 11:24
My concern is that his comments are intended to divert attention away from McLaren themselves and that, if fact, it was the car and not Magnussen that caused the crash…
Mark G (@)
13th March 2015, 12:06
Indeed.
I can’t remember where I read it first thing this morning (probably Sky Sports), but one P2 report mentioned that Magnussen had originally blamed the car, and later took to twitter to say that it was his own fault.
I think that it was more likely due to suggestive reporting than anything else, but my immediate thoughts were that that McLaren had perhaps asked Kevin to take the blame. I don’t buy into the Alonso crash conspiracies, and I still think the media are trying to make more of McLaren’s woes than they deserve, but I do think the car can be unpredictable.
MazdaChris (@mazdachris)
13th March 2015, 12:29
Sky have been pretty dissapointingly tabloid in the way they’ve reported on things so far this year. They’ve been all over the Alonso crash, trying to imply at all times that there’s something shady going on. Then when K-Mag hit the wall this morning, he was collared by Ted Kravitz who asked what had happened, and he gave the usual F1 driver style noncomittal answer along the lines of “it caught me out” or some other such cliche. Kravitz immediately started pushing and pushing, and then talking to the commentators about how it meant that the car had some something unexpected and blah blah blah. So much so that shortly afterwards Magnussen sent the tweet clarifying that he made an error and the car got away from him. A completely normal accident.
I’m reminded why I cancelled my Sky subscription. Really very poor journalism, trying to manufacture a scandal where none exists.
CTG
13th March 2015, 20:58
the whole leader of the pack thing is annoying too, Hamilton is F1 world champion not a sled dog. bad coverage and sometime a gossip tabloid
Nase (@)
13th March 2015, 12:31
@sparkyang:
When interviewed by Ted Kravitz shortly after the incident, he stated that the snap of oversteer caught him by surprise, which lead to speculations on Kravitz’s side. Minutes later, K-Mag tweeted that it was his error.
The Sky team concluded, after a moment of confusion (which imo they created entirely on their own) that his first reaction reflected his uncertainty whether or not some external factor had played a role in his running wide, and that a quick look at the data between the interview and said tweet confirmed that there hadn’t been anything wrong with the car.
I think that’s the simples explanation there is. K-Mag has hardly completed any laps with this car, and simply lost his rear in a semi-quick corner under windy conditions. If anything, the incident might suggest that the McLaren has more trouble coping with windy conditions than other cars of its generation, which is a phenomenon that isn’t unheard of, just ask Force India about their 2014 car.
petebaldwin (@)
13th March 2015, 13:45
There’s nothing to suggest that’s the case this time though. He didn’t go off at an unexpected place and he’s openly said it was driver error.
The Alonso crash still has a lot of unanswered questions whereas this looks pretty cut and dry.
DonSmee (@david-beau)
13th March 2015, 14:34
Fourteen year old Alonso would have done a better job.
Uzair Syed (@ultimateuzair)
13th March 2015, 15:45
At least Magnussen admits that it was his mistake, unlike Crashtor ”It is never my fault” Maldonado.
CTG
13th March 2015, 21:00
http://hasmaldonadocrashedtoday.com/
Wesley (@)
13th March 2015, 23:38
That gets me everytime lol! The scary thing is that the counter doesn’t get much rest :) I would love to know the price put on all the damage Maldonado has caused.
Sensord4notbeingafanboi (@peartree)
14th March 2015, 2:06
I think he clearly put a wheel on the yellow line, this and the fact Mag was pushing hard made up for a very simple crash, it results from the lack of experience with the car and setup.