The Mexican Grand Prix was stopped shortly before half-distance after a heavy crash for Kevin Magnussen.
The Haas driver lost control of his car at turn eight after an apparent failure at the left-rear of his car. Magnussen had run wide at the final corner shortly beforehand.The VF-23 made heavy contact with the TecPro barrier on the outside of the corner. Magnussen was able to extract himself from his car but wasn’t able to make radio communication with his team after the impact.
Valtteri Bottas saw Magnussen go into the barrier in front of him and told his race engineer Alex Chan: “A car crashed in front of me, it’s going to be a Safety Car.”
A brief fire at the back of the car was quickly extinguished by marshals. No other drivers were involved in the crash. Magnussen was taken to the Medical Centre for checks afterwards.
The Safety Car was deployed quickly in response to the crash. However with the barrier requiring extensive repairs the race was red-flagged on the 35th lap of 71.
Lewis Hamilton, who was running third at the time, told his team on the radio “they should red flag this” shortly before the stoppage. However race leader Max Verstappen was unimpressed with the call, saying “that’s a joke,” when the red flag came out.
“Red flag for what? I saw the car was a bit on fire, but it’s already all cleared.”
The race director has announced the race will restart at 3:13pm local time.
Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and
2023 Mexican Grand Prix
- ‘I’m so s*** in qualifying’: Norris berates himself despite pole-winning lap
- Ferrari reaping the benefits of having F1’s most closely-matched team mates
- Norris had “no chance” to beat Verstappen in Mexico even without Q1 exit
- Transcript: How Ricciardo’s race went awry soon after he was told to “bring it home”
- Mercedes see “very encouraging signs” from Austin floor update
