Kevin Magnussen says he has changed his opinion about his collision with Lewis Hamilton at the start of the Spanish Grand Prix, after reviewing the incident before arriving in Monaco.
The two drivers touched at Turn 4 on the opening lap and Magnussen was sent through the gravel, incurring damage to his Haas, while Hamilton limped back to the pits with a puncture. At the time Magnussen said Hamilton “knew what he was doing, he just ramped me” over team radio, but has since retracted that conclusion.
“I had a chance to look at it and of course changed my view on it,” Magnussen said. “I had a feeling when I was on the track that he opened his steering but that’s not what happened — he got into the slipstream of the Ferrari, understeered a tiny bit and I was super close to him, and I didn’t give him much room for error, gave no margin. And we touched… it is what it is, unfortunately.”
Magnussen says he wishes he had just left Hamilton a little bit more space in that scenario, but says trying to stay tight to the inside line was key for him to attempt to retain as much grip as possible.
“I just wish I had turned in one millisecond later. In a corner like that, if you’re gonna go round the outside you want to be as close to him as possible. You don’t want to go too wide and into the dirty part of the track. That’s what I did. We touched, unfortunately.
“There was also a lot of bad luck — if I had been a little bit further forward when we hit we would have hit rim to rim and it would have been different. But unfortunately I just hit the side of the tire on his side of the tire — puncture. Wish I had given him slightly more room.”
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