Haas team principal Ayao Komatsu commended Kevin Magnussen on his “amazing” top-ten performance in the Italian Grand Prix despite the Dane’s penalty time penalty and subsequent race ban.
Magnussen will unfortunately miss next week’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix having reached 12 points on his super license, a tally that triggers an automatic race ban.
The Haas charger was sanctioned by the stewards following a contact with Alpine’s Pierre Gasly at Monza. The punishment entailed a 10-second time penalty as well as 2 penalty points that inevitably put Magnussen at the fatal limit.
The Dane finished P9 on the road, eventually losing the position to Williams’ Alex Albon but preserving a tenth-place finish by less than two tenths of a second from Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso.
Komatsu praised Magnussen for his combative drive while admitting that his team had in part been responsible for placing its driver in contention with Gasly.
“Kevin fighting so hard after he was told he had a penalty, and then creating a 10-second gap to Fernando Alonso, that was amazing,” commented the Haas team boss.
“On the flip side, we shouldn’t have put Kevin in that position behind Gasly, so again our execution wasn’t perfect and that’s something we need to improve.”
Magnussen earned 10 of his 12 penalty points in the first six races of this season, which began in March, with 5 points collected in the Miami Grand Prix alone.
“Kev races hard, he races aggressively and in some occasions the penalty he had, maybe he was too aggressive,” Komatsu acknowledged.
“And this time around he was trying hard and then locked up and then put Gasly off the track. So he got a penalty, I accept that.”
Magnussen was left fuming following the stewards’ decision in Italy, insisting his punishment “doesn’t make any sense”. Interestingly, Gasly shared his rival’s opinion.
“Someone told me he got a 10-second penalty. I’m a bit surprised by that,” the Alpine driver said after the race.
“Yeah, he tried, but it was a bit of wheel-to-wheel. In the end, I didn’t lose any time. I’m a bit surprised.”
Alonso echoed Gasly’s sentiment, the Spaniard arguing for a revamp of the penalty rules.
“Penalty points, as we’ve discussed many times, should be for dangerous driving, something that is a danger for the sport and for the others,” he explained.
“And I think a couple of those points that [Magnussen] accumulated, I’m not sure, I don’t have the list here, but sometimes it’s just pit lane, white line, unsafe releases, all these kind of things.
“I mean, this is part of racing. This is a drive-through. This is a five-second penalty.
“I understand the racing penalties, but the safety penalties are a little bit harder to understand.”
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