The enormous crash triggered by Kevin Magnussen and Sergio Perez brought the Monaco Grand Prix to a crash on the first lap.
The dramatic incident and its aftermath was captured by fans overlooking the Beau Rivage sequence where the Red Bull and both Haas cars ploughed into the barriers.How the crash happened
The crash occurred as the field climb from Sainte Devote to Massenet. These are the first two true corners on a lap of the Monte Carlo circuit, but the route connecting them is anything but straight. The Beau Rivage section (properly called the Avenue d’Ostende) winds left and right, and drivers plot a straight line between the winding barriers.
This presents a challenge when two cars attempt to climb it side-by-side. In the case of Perez and Magnussen, the Haas was beginning to draw alongside the Red Bull as the racing line brought Perez closer to the barrier on his right, leading to contact as the first video shows:
When the pair made contact, only Nico Hulkenberg and Zhou Guanyu were behind them. Hulkenberg attempted to pass the crash scene, and nearly made it, but was struck by Perez’s spinning, wrecked RB20.
Zhou’s delay helps Sainz
Zhou got on the brakes and avoided the crash entirely. With so much wreckage on the track, including loose wheels rolling around, it would have been obvious to him that the race was going to be red-flagged. He therefore had every reason to take his time approaching and passing the wrecked cars.
This turned out to be highly significant for Carlos Sainz Jnr’s race. He had collided with Oscar Piastri at the start, as the first video also shows, and pulled off later on the lap with a puncture, falling from third place to 16th.
When the race was red-flagged, all the every driver bar the delayed Zhou had passed through the first timing sector. Because Zhou hadn’t got that far, race control could not use that point on the track to establish a running order for the restart. Instead they had to use the drivers’ positions at the second Safety Car line, which can be seen at the pit exit in the first video. Sainz was third at that point, so got his position back:
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Perez’s hard hit
The low-level views offered by the television footage can obscure how much the barriers curve at this section of track. This video shows the steep angle at which Perez struck the barrier after being spun towards it by his contact with Magnussen, and how unfortunate Hulkenberg was to be collected:
Debris strikes photographer
These final two videos show more of the scale of the impact and the debris it showered over photographers and camera operators standing at the outside of the corner. One photographer was taken to the medical centre after being struck by a piece of debris, was found to have no open wounds and released.
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We have made every effort to identify the original source of videos where possible.
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Avro Anson (@avroanson)
27th May 2024, 12:01
Hey, I’m logged in! I think the problem has been fixed – thanks @KeithCollantine
Nooma341 (@nooma341)
27th May 2024, 12:25
+1.
bull mello (@bullmello)
27th May 2024, 14:25
Me too!
Many thanks Keith.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
27th May 2024, 15:31
Indeed, this time it’s fixed, until it was fixed trying to log in would not really log in and would still show the “log in” button, and only upon making a comment you’d be temporarily logged in, but only to the page you were replying to, other pages would still behave as if logged off.
Jere (@jerejj)
27th May 2024, 16:39
Same for me.
ykiki (@ykiki)
27th May 2024, 17:34
Now logged in as well!
Red Andy (@red-andy)
27th May 2024, 14:17
Ah yes, this confirms exactly what I already thought about the crash. – Everyone
anon
27th May 2024, 15:24
@red-andy what the last videos do show is perhaps the one thing that has been overlooked – which is that they were lucky that only a few small pieces of debris ended up being flung through the gap where the photographers were located, and that none of the photographers were injured severely during that crash.
kuvemar
28th May 2024, 8:35
Does it? I was ready to put the blame on both Checo and Magnussen, maybe even more so on Checo. Seeing the crash from the higher up perspective, I’ll have to disagree with myself. Magnussen had to back out of it, for sure.
ElectronTom
28th May 2024, 9:37
I went in the other direction, from racing incident to Checo wholly to blame. Checo was the only one taking this tight a line against the wall, indicating that he deliberately squeezed Kmag.
Peder
28th May 2024, 22:10
Check changed his racing line, look at Lando Norris, then look at Perez moving over trying to shut out KMag when he already is on the inside, Kevin has a much sharper apex in turn 1 he is already on the throttle and front axel fat Checo’s rear axel when Checo switches racing line, meaning Kevin has the right to have room in his line, kmag actually moves out towards the wall to give check space despite staying in his racing line because Checo is squeezing him. Squeezing here is fine, but he didn’t leave room as per Appendix L ch4. for Kevin. KMag is of the opinion, and so am I, that Checo should leave the room for KMags car forcing a tighter or earlier brake into turn 3, this would be a legal defensive move. But Checo is weaving on the straight, in response to Kevins better exit of turn 1. Meaning… Checho has no business not leaving Space for Kevin. Kevin has got 10s for Jeddah, in a place where Kevin left a little too little space in a similar scenario, though his intention was to leave room. Perez intent was crash or back out. KMag probably gets the blame with his recent reputation. He doesn’t even acknowledge he knew Kevin was there, but if he didn’t, then why the hell is he changing to a slower racing line instead of moving up on Bottas, its irrational, and erratic from Perez. Kevin is really known for sticking to the line and Perez knows he is there, so it’s not erratic, unpredictable nor dangerous in any manner, Kevin moves right and gives space until he touches the walls dirt, and Perez just keeps squeezing him, beyond that 1 car space. On track with no wall there Kevin would have been pushed off track. Meaning the sole cause of the accident is Perez deciding not give Kevin room and sandwiching Kevin between a rear right wheel and a wall, at a moment where Kevin’s wheel axels cannot go backwards even with brakes applied, they are ceramic brakes btw. You slam them or don’t touch them. Had Kevin lifted or tried to back out he would have still flipped Perez because the wheels interlocked at the kink. Kevin is all the way over to the wall Perez has squeezed him into a disadvantage, he doesn’t need to pul i to the Alex here at all, and he is required to leave a cars width room for Kevin, but decided not to. At this point Kevin expects Perez to leave that room so they both can get around the kink, and then Kevin would have probably slammed the brakes before turn 3 attempting go get the inside line Infront of Hülkenberg or behind him, if checo didn’t want to get passed he shouldn’t have changed lanes because you can only do that once. And not steer under braking. In either case, Perez lost that position the moment he moved to cover Kmag instead doing what Norris did. Look at how different the battle Infront turned out for this very reason. This isn’t just predominantly Perez fault, Perez broke the FIA Sporting regulations, and caused the accident as the moving vector with room to spare. He is wholly to blame for the accident.
Robert
27th May 2024, 16:56
This made me think, and laugh a little. I mean, if ALL BUT ONE car had passed the timing line, wouldn’t that still define the order of all cars? The way FIA write rules quite often results in quirks like this.
Alianora La Canta (@alianora-la-canta)
28th May 2024, 21:49
They had to check if the other one would have got through, or if it would have stopped prior to the line due to tripping over debris or something.
Robert
29th May 2024, 13:47
Sorry but I don’t really understand what you mean here.
My point was, in this particular case it was clearly possible to establish the order of ALL still running cars at the time when the red flag was thrown. The cars still running were clearly those that made it back to the pits under their own power. There was plenty of time before the restart to figure out which ones did that. And the order of those, at the time of the red flag, could have been established by the first sector time – plus one car that had yet to pass that line but still made it back. That last car was clearly last, everyone else could line up as recorded through the first sector. Simple.
I understand that they couldn’t use that order, because of the way the current rules are worded. But it could easily be worded in a way that allows for this, so that what happened at the first start isn’t nullified. Some drivers made up places, others lost places. The fair thing to do would be to keep those changes if possible. In this case it was possible, but the rules as written still doesn’t allow for it. I think that’s wrong. And in the broader scope of things, I also made a point of my opinion that FIA often phrase things sub-optimally.
Jim from US (@jimfromus)
27th May 2024, 20:14
Love F1’s safety protocols. Let’s see if PER can walk 4 miles back to the paddock and if he can’t, we’ll get him some medical attention.
Nick T.
28th May 2024, 0:31
Boo hoo.
Esteban
29th May 2024, 5:53
Everybody talks about how innocent Hulkenberg was, and while he did had nothing to do with the accident, from his onboard it’s crystal clear he steps on it to overtake the crashed cars, which were obviously going to come back to his side of the track. Compare with Zhou who brakes immediately. Hulk was very inept to accelerate instead of brake, and, why? Nobody was going to overtake him, red flag was obvious.
Robert
29th May 2024, 14:27
I disagree. But to make sure, I watched it again. When Perez starts spinning, Hulkenberg lifts off immediately. As the tangled cars of Perez and Magnussen then bounces off the barrier on the right, Hulkenberg accelerates into the clear track ahead and on the left to avoid getting collected too. He very nearly makes it, but gets tapped on the rear and spins around. Had he not accelerated, he would have been absolutely smashed into the wall on the left by Perez’s wreckage. He also immediately lifts off again when he gets that tap.
With cars behind you during the start of a race, you do not suddenly just brake. The red flag is obvious to everyone watching this after it happened, yes. But in the car as it unfolds, you have to allow for a second or so to come to that conclusion. At the heat of the moment it’s literary about survival, and I’m not talking about race position. Zhou on the other hand is further back, he knows he’s last out of the first corner and doesn’t have any clear gap in front of him when the wreckage unfolds. He just have debris flying all over the place, so of course the only reasonable thing for him is to slow down and take his time. Both Hulkenberg and Zhou reacted to get their cars away from the accident, the difference is Zhou was behind and Hulkenberg was to the left of it.