Kevin Magnussen was left “flat out, just completely confused” by the penalty he received in the Italian Grand Prix that triggered a race ban.
The Haas driver attempted to overtake Pierre Gasly into the second chicane, but locked up and the pair banged wheels, both running wide and continuing. Magnussen was handed a 10s time penalty for causing a collision, with the standard two penalty points that came with it taking him to a total of 12 and triggered a one-race suspension for the next event in Baku.
“I’m frustrated about the penalty — I don’t understand it at all,” Magnussen said. “Flat out, just completely confused. We raced hard into Turn 4, we had slight contact and we both missed the corner, we came back on track again, no damage to either car, no consequence in the race for either of us and I get a 10s penalty.
“Then lap one, Ricciardo and Nico … Ricciardo put Nico on the grass at 300kmh, completely destroyed Nico’s race, massive consequence and damage to Nico’s car and he gets a 5s penalty. Where is the logic? I just don’t get it.”
The time penalty still didn’t demote Magnussen out of the points, dropping him from ninth to 10th, just 0.1s ahead of Fernando Alonso in the final classification. As he was speaking immediately after getting out of the car, he admitted he hadn’t seen the official document from the stewards yet confirming his ban, but had been true to his word that he wouldn’t change the way he raced in order to try and get the best result.