'Annoying' pit lane penalty frustrates Magnussen

Kevin Magnussen has described his pit lane start penalty as "annoying" after missing a call to be weighed during Friday practice.

The Renault driver was called to the weighbridge by the FIA as he followed Daniil Kvyat in to the pit lane during FP2, with the Red Bull stopping as requested. Magnussen said he didn't realise that both drivers were required to stop and felt it was a strange situation which led to his error.

"Obviously annoying to have that," Magnussen said. "But I guess it’s one of those things, you just learn from it and make sure it doesn’t happen again.

"It was a tough circumstance because normally they don’t stop two cars right behind each others, and in this case I didn’t actually miss the red light - I thought it was for someone else. Which it was, but it was also for me. It was for both of us. I was correct in saying it was for Kvyat but I didn’t know it was for me as well. It’s difficult to know, but here we are."

And Magnussen explained the FIA does not have to inform Renault of the mistake, which is why his car was not returned to be weighed immediately.

"That wasn’t communicated from the FIA to the guys that I needed to be on the weighbridge, so that’s something that’s unlucky as well. They don’t have to do that, you have to stop at the weighbridge. There’s nothing wrong in them not telling the team, it’s my responsibility, but I would say extremely unlucky - here we are."

With the penalty for the indiscretion leading to a pit lane start, Magnussen feels it is additionally harsh because there would be no punishment for the car being underweight during practice.

"The way I look at it, what is frustrating about it, even if I had stopped at the weighbridge and got caught - let’s say hypothetically I was illegal on something, underweight, rear wing too low or whatever - there’s no penalty for that in practice.

"So why do we penalise me for so hard because I didn’t stop? There’s no consequence for stopping, there’s no reason for me not to stop. It’s not a way of cheating, it’s no advantage. But there we are, that’s the rule and it’s the same for everyone - it was my turn this time."

REPORT: Hamilton pips Rosberg to Bahrain pole by 0.077s

AS IT HAPPENED: Bahrain Grand Prix qualifying

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