Report shows Magnussen was “blameless” for crash

2014 German Grand Prix

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McLaren team principal Eric Boullier has backed driver Kevin Magnussen over the first-corner crash at the German Grand Prix.

Felipe Massa, who rolled after contact with the McLaren, blamed the rookie for the collision and described it as being indicative of a poor standard of driving among younger F1 racers.

However the stewards handed down no punishment for the crash and during a phone-in media interview Boullier pointed out “the stewards report related to Felipe’s driving and nothing else”.

“There was a driving conduct investigation and they decided to impose no penalty on Felipe, which is their prerogative,” he said. “But the report makes it clear that Kevin was one hundred percent blameless.”

Magnussen equalled his highest qualifying position of the year with fourth at the Hockenheimring. Boullier endorsed his driver’s progress, saying “he has respected all the tests we needed him to do and he is starting to clearly deliver in terms of his performance and in terms of results”.

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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44 comments on “Report shows Magnussen was “blameless” for crash”

  1. Liam McShane (@)
    22nd July 2014, 18:04

    I think it was fairly obvious straight away that Magnussen had done nothing wrong. I’ve never really liked Massa and i’m starting to like him less and less with his comments.

    1. That’s racists. It’s not his fault that he’s Brazilian.

      Anyway, to totally agree with you :)

      1. In what world was that comment racist

        1. He was joking….

      2. Tiago that’s the kind of attitude Massa shows, it’s the only thing he shares with Ayrton.

    2. Join the bandwagon. It’s a 13 year old rusty piece of junk, the car that is.

  2. Not that it would change Felipe’s mind. His comment about GP2 driving standards is pretty pointless since MAG never drove in GP2… Pot. Kettle. Black.

    1. I don’t think Magnussen is a kettle on this one.

  3. It clearly wasn’t Kevin’s fault. He was already up over the kerbs and hard on the brakes, he can’t just disappear! Massa just gave no consideration for anyone else and swept across the track like he owned place, like he thinks he deserves to be there and no-one else does. It’s sad to say after everything that’s happened to him, but I think Felipe has had his time and needs the boot. Everyone seems to have been nicey nice to him after his accident but you can’t pamper him when he’s being an idiot just because something bad happened to him five years ago. He’ll always blame everyone else as well no matter who’s fault it is.

    1. Here’s an easy way to assess if it’s down to Kevin’s driving style:
      – If there was any other driver on the inside of that corner instead of Magnussen, would there still have been an accident?
      The answer is obviously: Yes there would. There was nowhere to go.

    2. Could not agree more. Massa had many accidents before with exactly this kind of driving where he has no consideration at all for other competitors. Hearing him give advice to drivers in junior formulas about
      driving standards referring to Magnussen is just pathetic .

  4. Well, as the stewards decided not to punish anyone, we can safely say that the report shows that Massa was blameless for the crash. To me, the physics of the crash, with the Williams being catapulted to the left, shows that Magnussen wasn’t all that blameless, otherwise the McLaren should have been shoved out to the right of the track.
    Anyway, the queue to beat the dead horse is growing by the minute, it seems to me.

    1. Yes. Excellent point. The physics do indeed point to a turn one collision. I can only hope all the laws of physics were obeyed. If not, I will protest to the FIA for not giving physics a grid penalty to help prevent this sort of incident in the future.
      Please, show me your calculations that support your theory. Neither driver had momentum in the direction towards the inside of the corner.

    2. They are making a right turn, and due to the cars forward momentum they will want to go straight (which seems as left once they are into the corner), so once the cars looses grip (due to the collision) the cars will stop turning right, and go straight (again left from an on-board perspective).
      So it doesn’t matter who had turned in on who, they would always end up sliding to that side of the track.

    3. The only way that would happen would be if Massa was trying to deliberately take out Magnussen. They both have forwards momentum pushing them to the otherside.

    4. Well, as the stewards decided not to punish anyone, we can safely say that the report shows that Massa was blameless for the crash.

      The report (which is readily available on the FIA site) shows that the stewards find him to not have done it intentionally. Not that he was blameless.

      1. And that evidently only Massa was under investigation, not Magnussen.

    5. otherwise the McLaren should have been shoved out to the right of the track.

      Physics wouldn’t allow that outcome.

    6. Any time the back of one car’s wheel (MAG) touches the front of another (MAS), you are going to get rapid lift, since both wheels are rotating against each other. This lift, combined with the mass of the car (MAS) wanting to continue straight towards the outer edge of turn 1, means the car is going to potentially want to roll. This is further complicated by the loaded suspension spring equilibrium and contribution from both sides of the car and the friction of the rear left tyre. The on-board view from MAG clearly shows exactly what happened. Physics, timing, and bad luck…

  5. What’s interesting is that Massa went from Sauber to Ferrari to be a test driver and bascially learn how to be an F1 driver since he was fast but erratic. Some referred to it as going to F1 University and yet he’s still crashing into people. I guess while learning how to be an F1 driver Ferrari should have included classes on how to keep your mouth shut.

    1. “Ferrari should have included classes on how to keep your mouth shut.”

      Given the antics of LDM I don’t think Ferrari is a certified institution in that field.

      1. At least he could learn to whisper …

  6. Massa will be better when both carear’s are done, you can book that. With all the tragic stuff/age happening to Button. Mag has poor race pace imo.

    1. Dan please explain race pace, since Mag was more than 1 sec. faster than Button:
      Rank Driver Car Fastest lap Gap On lap
      1 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1’19.908 53
      2 Kevin Magnussen McLaren-Mercedes 1’20.224 0.316 56
      3 Fernando Alonso Ferrari 1’20.548 0.640 57
      4 Sergio Perez Force India-Mercedes 1’20.752 0.844 54
      5 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull-Renault 1’20.846 0.938 53
      6 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1’21.298 1.390 67
      7 Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 1’21.338 1.430 55
      8 Jenson Button McLaren-Mercedes 1’21.346 1.438 64
      9 Valtteri Bottas Williams-Mercedes 1’21.494 1.586 45
      10 Sebastian Vettel Red Bull-Renault 1’21.545 1.637 39

      1. Race pace isn’t really about the fastest lap, Its about the overall pace & consistency showed throughout a race.

        There are too many variables now to look at fastest lap alone, Especially relating to tyre life/compound, fuel/ers use & specific race strategies (Pushing for position or managing pace).

        If you look at Hamilton/Rosberg. Lewis (Like Kevin) was on a very aggressive strategy to come through the field so set a much faster lap time than Rosberg who (Perhaps like Button) was just managing his pace to maintain track position & not have to worry about fuel or suddenly running out of tyres.

        On the whole this year looking at lap charts etc… It is actually fair to say that Button has had the better race pace & consistency of the 2 McLaren drivers & that is a big part of whats helped him get the better results & be ahead of Kevin in the WDC standings.

  7. I think that’s the second time this year we’ve seen a car flipped over. These new low noses are dangerous, as Newey pointed out at the start of the season.

    1. I tend to disagree. The higher noses of the last few seasons meant the cars climbing over each other. Much more chance of a head impact.

    2. I don’t think noses had much to do with these flips as they both were due to wheel to wheel contact.

    3. Massa flip was nothing to do with noses, if you’d watched the footage you would have seen that. It was clearly wheel to wheel contact.

    4. Yeah I purposely re watched the crash replay to see if the nose had any part in the flip but from my recollection Magnussen’s front wing didn’t even sustain any damage let alone his nose, the flip purely resulted from wheels climbing over each other. In fact I can’t imagine that the initial contact was actually that heavy as Magnussen sustained very minor damage, minor enough that it didn’t seem to affect his race pace. I’d go a far as to say that Mass would like have be able to continue to race if his car had not of landed on it’s roof, that’s were the majority of his car damage was sustained.

      1. Neither flip was caused by the nose, Both was purely due to wheel to wheel contact.

        When the front tyre catches the rear tyre of an open wheel car at the angle they did in both accidents (Maldonado/Guttierez & Magnuseen/Massa) the chance of a flip is greatly increased.

        Also in neither incident did the nose of the car behind even touch the car that flipped.

        1. In-car shot from Kevins car showing that there was no contact from the nose of his car-
          http://i60.tinypic.com/fy1taf.jpg
          http://i59.tinypic.com/2pzmn1s.jpg

  8. The stewards conclusion was: Massa was at fault for the collision. As his loss was greater than Mag’s for the accident (he retired, while Mag was able to proceed in the race), no further punishment was warranted. I believe that the stewards should have issued Massa a reprimand for his careless move, making it clear whom they had sided with.

    Massa is clearly costing Sir Williams and Claire valuable points. I think the math for the Williams team is easy: when the points lost by Massa add up in loss of money greater than Massa’s sponsorship, he should go….

    1. Williams has shown in the past that they are remorseless at firing a driver when they feel they’re getting a bad deal, be it money or performance wise. Just ask Mansell or Hill, not the smallest of names. Frentzen didn’t last either, nor did Zanardi.

      The story with Prost was different, but it shows they really don’t care about losing a driver if they feel they’re getting the better deal. And rightly so I must add!

    2. Massa’s actually had a bit of a resurgence by joining Williams. He’s looked alot better compared to his last couple of years at ferrari. I think most of his harsh comments are purely from frustration. Also It’s not “clear” that Massa’s costing them points. canada and Silverstone aren’t clear examples of him costing them points etc. He’s done more than enough to have a better points position than he does now but has had bad luck.

  9. I disagree that Magnussen was blameless, if you look closely at the speed and the line Magnussen holds, there is just no way he will make the corner, so even if Massa had given him space I think they would’ve colided. However the colision that actually did happen was mainly Massa’s fault, absolutely. Perhaps what Massa means that a driver holding Magnussen’s line shouldn’t go that fast and should therefore not have been as high up on Massa as he was, and that when Massa did turn in he simply shouldn’t have been there. However, Magnussen was there and Massa should’ve given him space, so I suppose that Magnussen can easily be seen as blameless, but I think Magnussen should’ve been more careful. Though having that said, even as a Massa-fan, the colision that did happen was mainly Massa’s fault and it’s sad to hear his unhumble comments. Yes this is the first time one of his many colisions has been his fault, but he has to look at himself, for what happened in Canada wasn’t 100% Perez’s fault (even if he definately was the main contributor) and what he did now in Germany he could’ve avoided (at least for being at fault, had he given space and being hit then it would’ve been bad luck). Massa needs to become more humble, stop simply blaming others and take a good look at what he’s been doing at these incidents.

  10. Does anyone know who was an ex-driver steward at German GP?

    1. Tom Kristensen I think it was.

    2. Tom Kristensen, I think.

    3. Dunno who it ended up being, but Autosport reports that it ‘should’ have been Jochen Mass, but he was “a non-arrival as a steward”.

  11. Flipping over of Massa’s car

    Are we seeing the results of a low placed nose in Massa’s crash?

    Was it a wheel over wheel that caused the flipover or was it the low nose goings under Massa’s

    just curious

    1. It was purely wheel to wheel contact.

      The nose/front wing of Kevin’s car didn’t even touch Massa’s car.

      1. In-car shot from Kevins car showing that there was no contact from the nose of his car-
        http://i60.tinypic.com/fy1taf.jpg
        http://i59.tinypic.com/2pzmn1s.jpg

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