F1 News, Reports and Race Results

Sauber's Vasseur lashes out at 'f*cking dangerous' Magnussen!

Sauber boss Fred Vasseur endorsed the view of his driver, Charles Leclerc, who criticized the controversial move by Kevin Magnussen in yesterday's Japanese Grand Prix.

The Haas driver was leading Leclerc down the main straight when the Monegasque initiated an overtaking maneuver on his rival only for Magnussen to move right and block the attempt.

Contact ensued between the two cars, with the Dane suffering a puncture that would lead to his retirement while Leclerc was spared any damage but failed to see the checkered flag following an unrelated suspension issue.

Addressing Magnussen's antics, Vasseur held nothing back as he lashed out at the Dane, whose move went unpunished by the Japanese Grand Prix stewards.

"From my point of view it was quite obvious, but there was no further action," Vasseur told Autosport.

"He [Magnussen] is involved in all the big crashes throughout the season, if you have a look. I'm not the referee, it's the FIA - they have to take decisions or not.

"The move was f*cking dangerous, he's moving always late, and one day we'll have a huge crash. When you are at 320km/h, it's more than dangerous."

F1 race director Charlie Whiting labeled the incident between Magnussen and Leclerc as unfortunate, and explained why the maneuver went unpunished.

"It was in two bits as you know, on the straight and then in the corner. He got the puncture in the first one," Whiting said.

"If you analyse it very, very carefully, what you see is two cars coming down with Kevin not moving, and then Charles catches, catches, catches, he decides to go to the right, and at exactly the same time, on the video, one frame, there’s one frame difference, then Kevin moves.

"I think it’s impossible to say that Kevin blocked him, it was just he made the decision that he was going to go right, fractionally after Charles had," he added.

"You had to look at it quite a few times and analyse it in little detail to see that, but I think that it’s just unfortunate, and that’s what the stewards felt."

Gallery: The beautiful wives and girlfriends of F1 drivers

Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter

Michael Delaney

Recent Posts

Las Vegas GP: Thursday's action in pictures

The opening day of running at the Las Vegas GP was a smooth but chilly…

54 mins ago

Williams' headaches persist into Vegas practice

Williams is continuing to fight uphill battles this weekend in Las Vegas as a knock-on…

2 hours ago

Ferrari's Sainz 'not satisfied with where we are' in Vegas

It was a solid start to the Las Vegas weekend for Ferrari with Carlos Sainz…

3 hours ago

Norris labels McLaren long-run pace ‘shocking’ in chilly Vegas

Lando Norris didn’t hold back in his assessment of McLaren’s performance on the opening day…

4 hours ago

Hamilton delighted with ‘consistently strong day’ in Vegas

Lewis Hamilton was particularly happy with his opening day of running at the Las Vegas…

6 hours ago

Verstappen stuck with 'draggy' rear wing for Vegas

Red Bull fears that its prospects for this weekend's Las Vegas Grand Prix - which…

6 hours ago