Kevin Magnussen apologised to his Haas F1 Team mechanics after the criticism he relayed to them over the radio during the Canadian Grand Prix after feeling his rebuilt VF-19 was not performing as he would have liked as he finished down in seventeenth position.
The Dane crashed out of Qualifying on Saturday, hitting the Wall of Champions before spinning across the track for a more violent hit against the pit wall, leaving his mechanics with a lot of work to do in order to prepare the car for the race.
Despite having made his way into the top ten shootout, Magnussen was forced to start from the pit lane as a result of the crash, and on track his pace was nowhere compared to what it was before the crash, with more pain being felt by Haas as they struggled in their attempt to get the Pirelli tyres to work properly.
During the race, in an outburst to his crew, Magnussen said, “This is the worst experience I’ve ever had in any race car ever,” but after the race, he was apologetic to his team after all the efforts they made just to get him in the race.
“We have such a good car, and qualifying is brilliant, we can fight anyone in the midfield – and we’ve been on ‘best of the rest’ pole many times this year,” said Magnussen. “So, it’s very hard to keep emotions under control in situations like today.
“There was nothing meant towards the team over the radio. They did an amazing job this weekend. I made a mistake in qualifying, and they’ve been able to build me a completely new car for the race today.
“We just have these tyres that don’t work in the race for us. It’s hard to not be very disappointed, I know the whole team is. They deserve a lot better.”
