Magnussen reprimanded for FP2 incident
Esteban Ocon thinks adding positive camber to Yas Marina corners would improve overtaking.
Kevin Magnussen has been reprimanded by the stewards after doing an extra lap once FP2 had finished in Abu Dhabi.
The Haas driver was performing a practice start at the end of the session, as is customary for most drivers, but in doing so he locked up, causing him to overshoot the pit entry.
Reversing back would have resulted in a very serious punishment for the Danish driver, so instead he did another slow lap around the circuit before taking to the pit lane.
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And while the stewards acknowledged that he followed the instructions of his team and drove as safely as possible for that extra lap, they have handed out a reprimand.
“The stewards heard from the driver of car 20 (Kevin Magnussen), team representative and reviewed video/audio evidence,” their report reads.
“The driver locked his brakes on entering the pit lane and overshot the pit entry. He asked his crew for instructions and was told to do a slow lap back to the pits.
“We note that he drove cautiously and without excessive speed.”
That was Magnussen’s first reprimand of the 2020 season, but he won’t be too annoyed about it given that he was already going to start from the back of the grid due to a penalty for an engine change.
Asides from that incident, Magnussen, who sat out FP1 to make way for Mick Schumacher, was happy with how the session went.
“I think it was a decent FP2. I actually thought the car felt better than it has in recent weekends, so that was nice to see,” he said.
“Hopefully, we can build on that and find a bit more performance on the C5 compound. I think we were very strong on the C4.
“Of course, qualifying doesn’t matter much to me because I have all those penalties so actually it’s been a good day. The C4 was good and that’s the main race tyre.”
With Haas opting to drop him and Romain Grosjean for Mick Schumacher and Nikita Mazepin next season, it’s likely that the upcoming race will be his last in Formula 1.
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