After his early retirement in Q1 with 19th place, Haas driver Kevin Magnussen complained about the way the track limits were handled after the Danes had two laps canceled that would have been enough for them to move into Q2.
“It’s hard and it’s annoying,” says Magnussen when asked. “I also find the whole thing with the track limits totally unnecessary, because the track limits in the curves are also defined in a natural way.”
“Turn seven [die zweite Lesmo-Kurve], where I got the penalty, there’s this double curb on the exit of the corner and after that it goes down deep, which loses a lot of time anyway. So there’s a natural limit there, as there should be.”
Magnussen: Nobody cares about those few centimetres
“But if you go to the edge of the curb, you’re a few inches over it and they just erase the lap time. I just think that’s stupid and unnecessary. In corners where there’s a natural limit, I think it should are not checked at all,” says Magnussen.
The Haas pilot continues his criticism: “On TV nobody cares if you’re a few inches over anyway because you can’t see it anyway. It just looks like you’re pushing the limit.”
“But I do agree that you should control it in corners where the exit is flat. But then you’re more careful there because you know you can’t go that far out, whereas in corners with natural track limits you’re more free feels to push more.”
Magnussen squints at points: Car better in the race
The problem, according to Magnussen, is that you can’t feel the white lines at the exit of the curve, unlike the curbs: “You just don’t feel anything on the white lines and painted tracks, but when you come onto a double curb like that, you can feel exactly where you are located.”
After all, with 19th place in qualifying, he was able to beat his team-mate Mick Schumacher, who was also the last to retire in Q1. It wouldn’t have made a big difference for the Haas pilots anyway, since both Magnussen and Schumacher received a grid penalty of 15 places.
Despite the penalties, both even move up the grid, so Magnussen will start the race from 16th place on the grid, which he thinks will give him better chances than in qualifying: “I think in the race we have a faster and more competitive car than in qualifying. Maybe not fast enough for points, but with luck it could be, who knows?”