Kevin Magnussen on the crash that sparked chaos at Australian Grand Prix

Kevin Magnussen has said he “didn’t even feel” his Haas hit the wall at Albert Park on Sunday, in the incident which prompted a late red flag.

Magnussen ran wide on the exit of Turn 2 with only a few laps remaining and his right-rear tyre clipped the wall as he opened up the throttle to head down the next straight in Melbourne, but the carcass of his tyre had already flown into the air and his car was too damaged to continue.

A piece of debris even flew up and struck a fan on the arm in the nearby grandstand in what was described as a “freak one-off” moment afterwards, through Magnussen was able to crawl around to the exit of Turn 4 and park up to retire his car.

The remaining debris strewn across the track was enough for the FIA to take action and halt the race, which in turn set up a two-lap sprint finish with a standing start on Sunday.

Magnussen was unable to take part, but contact between several of his colleagues on the grid prompted even more damage and a third red flag stoppage of the race – a Formula 1 first – before the race concluded in yellow flag conditions.

Not only was the Haas driver frustrated to not finish, he was surprised his incident had even taken place at all, given the lack of indication he had from inside the car.

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“I didn’t even feel it, so it definitely wasn’t something that felt big in the car, but it was enough to crack the rim and take the tyre off,” Magnussen explained, as per the official Formula 1 website.

“Unfortunate, we were in P12, so at the time it didn’t look like we would be able to score points.

“So, not my day, and it seemed like again, the car seemed to have decent pace so I’m encouraged by that, and we’ll push next time.

“I think we got unlucky with the red flag because we’d just pitted out of P11 and we seemed to be quicker than the next couple of cars so I was fairly confident at that stage of the race, and then we pitted under the Safety Car… and then that turned into a red flag and then everybody put their tyres on… to [go] the end. So I was last.”