Kevin Magnussen will start the Canadian Grand Prix from the pits following his heavy crash in Q2.
Haas team principal Guenther Steiner said the damage to Magnussen’s car was “pretty big” after he spun into the pit wall. That will allow the team to replace his chassis and fit fresh tyres.“We need to change the chassis. We will start from pit lane, obviously. We need to change the gearbox. There is no point to try to start somewhere in the back end with a C5 tyre. So we start from pit lane.
“The best way is to change the chassis. The quick and safest way is to do that and then go back and start from pit lane.”
Magnussen crashed while the other Haas of Romain Grosjean was trying to set a time to get into Q3. However Steiner believes Grosjean wouldn’t have made it into Q3 even without the red flag caused by his team mate’s crash.
“Kevin was, until then, clear in. It was clear he was going forward. Romain would have finished we think 11th or 12th. It depends what Verstappen did. Which would have been good because we’d have each car on one tyre, but it all went south at the last corner.”
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Saad Mughal
8th June 2019, 23:33
They should take a free new engine too. Make the most of the situation
Chaitanya
9th June 2019, 12:23
Engine is not free nor is gearbox these days.
Jere (@jerejj)
9th June 2019, 7:18
But the damage on the front-end wasn’t that bad, though, not as bad as it first looked. Definitely not as bad as, for example, on Sainz’s car following his shunt in FP3 for the 2015 Russian GP, which didn’t lead to a change of monocoque.
bosyber (@bosyber)
9th June 2019, 8:15
@jerejj, I suspect the gearbox and engine might have put stress on the back bulkhead of the chassis. Anyway, I think Steiner is saying that it is easier, faster, to start with a fresh chassis, build that up with a new gearbox too, instead of first unpicking bits from the crashed chassis and having to check whether they are usable or not.
Jere (@jerejj)
9th June 2019, 8:22
”That will allow the team to replace his chassis and fit fresh tyres.”
– Wrong, he’s still obligated to start the race with the set of the softest compound of the weekend he used for his earlier Q2 run.
Ole
9th June 2019, 8:47
FIA Regulations, article 24.4, j:
“With the exception of any cars which have a change of survival cell after the qualifying
practice session, at the start of the race each car which qualified for Q3 must be fitted
with the tyres with which the driver set his fastest time during Q2. This will only be
necessary for these cars if dry‐weather tyres were used to set the fastest time in Q2 and
if dry‐weather tyres are used at the start of the race.”
Alas, he has free tyre choice when staring from pit lane due to chassis / survival cell change.
Sham (@sham)
9th June 2019, 9:00
Not if he starts from the pitlane.
The reason for not having a new engine is that it won’t generate a penalty now, but will in a few races time. If the engine is healthy, keep using it.
With a pitlane start, they can change anything if they want to.