Magnussen suggests FIA should have penalised Bottas

Haas driver Kevin Magnussen was left frustrated after being eliminated in Q1 despite Valtteri Bottas improving under yellow flags.

It was an Azerbaijan Grand Prix to forget for Kevin Magnussen, after the Dane was forced to retire from the GP with a suspected power unit failure.

Out of the five drivers to retire from the race, four were powered by Ferrari PUs; though not all DNFs appeared to be PU related.

Magnussen’s, however, most likely did, with the classic puff of smoke being released from his exhaust moments before pulling off the circuit.

It rounded off a bad weekend for the Haas F1 Team, with both Magnussen and Mick Schumacher being eliminated in Q1 and then running nowhere near the points places on Sunday.

Magnussen was 12th prior to his retirement, while his German team-mate finished a disappointing 14th place.

Magnussen’s race wasn’t helped by his Q1 elimination, which came under controversial circumstances.

The opening part of qualifying saw a 2:30 dash, as Lance Stroll brought out a red flag for hitting the Turn 2 barrier.

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Magnussen was initially in a safe position, however, he was unable to improve on his lap-time due to Fernando Alonso bringing out a yellow flag.

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The Spaniard ran-off the circuit on his final hot-lap, bringing out the yellow flag.

As a result, all drivers in that sector had to bail out of their lap; not everyone did though.

Magnussen was eliminated from Q1 due to Valtteri Bottas improving on his time, despite appearing to improve under the yellow flags.

The Danish driver was less than impressed after qualifying, when he spoke to F1.com’s Lawrence Barretto.

“You mentioned Bottas,” Magnussen began.

“I mean, nothing against him. He was just doing his thing, but I mean, he did improve on the yellow. So I don’t know. Apparently, you can do that.

“You know, he got through to Q2 and knocked me out because of that. Everyone else backed off and, again, nothing against the Valtteri, he’s just racing trying to do his thing but yeah, little bit sour because of that.”

To make Saturday even worse for Magnussen, he was called up to the race stewards after the session.

The Dane was questioned over his pit-lane departure in the final part of Q1, however, he was cleared of any wrongdoing.

Magnussen explained what happened in the pit-lane when talking on Saturday, and that being the furthest down the paddock is a huge disadvantage.

“When the red flag comes out at that time, there’s just enough time to go out on another lap, then, you know, the people at the back of the queue always struggle to get through before the timer runs out.

“So being the first in the pit lane, you’re kind of stuck. Because soon as there’s two or three people queuing up in the pit lane, you can’t get out. So yeah, we missed out on the last lap.”