Kevin Magnussen was forced to watch the whole qualifying session for the Canadian Grand Prix from the sidelines after his free practice crash earlier in the day left him unable to take to track.
The Renault Sport F1 driver revealed it was the slightly damp conditions that caught him out during FP3, leaving him a passenger as the left hand side of his RS16 struck the wall on the exit of turn seven with a little over twelve minutes of the session remaining.
The damage done was so severe that his mechanics were unable to repair the car in time for the qualifying hour, meaning Magnussen will have to start the 70-lap race on Sunday at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve at the back of the grid, providing the stewards in Canada give him permission to start.
“What can you say? Obviously I wanted to be driving rather than watching qualifying,” said Magnussen after his incident. “The damp conditions caught me out in the morning and the walls are pretty unforgiving as we saw.
“I feel for my crew as they have a lot of work to do. I’ll be doing everything I can to make amends in the race tomorrow.”
