Kvyat 'lost his mind' in crash - Magnussen

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Kevin Magnussen says Daniil Kvyat "lost his mind" leading to a collision between the pair at the Monaco Grand Prix.

Kvyat was a lap down after an electronics issue at the start of the race and attempted to un-lap himself on Magnussen after the Renault driver ran wide at Tabac. The two made light contact on more than one occasion through the Swimming Pool complex before Kvyat tried to pass on the inside of Rascasse, causing a collision.

With Kvyat admitting he "didn't really care at that point about this incident because my race was ruined anyway", Magnussen was critical of the Russian.

"We had a good start to the race and made a really good strategic call to change to the intermediate tyres just after the safety car," Magnussen said. "We were the only ones to do it so early and it was the right decision. We were in a good position as a lot of people were still to pit and we gained a lot of places.

"Unfortunately, Kvyat just lost his mind and crashed into me and that was effectively the end of my race. We did continue and made an early change to slicks as we had nothing to lose, but ultimately I hit the wall and damaged the front wing.

"We were several laps down at that point and the car had been in the wars so it was safer to retire. It’s a shame we didn’t have a good weekend as we were very optimistic for the race."

However, Magnussen admits the Renault power unit - which he ran in Monaco - should deliver more of a performance benefit in Canada than it did last weekend.

"Now we have to shift our focus to Canada and have a better weekend there. Montréal should be a stronger track for us and should play to the strengths of the updates for the car."

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.