Haas pair of Kevin Magnussen and Mick Schuamcher were left disappointed with F1 French GP crash involving Nicholas Latifi, Zhou Guanyu.
It wasn’t the best of ends for Haas pair of Magnussen and Schumacher, who had a tangle with Williams’ Latifi and Alfa Romeo’s Guanyu in F1 French GP. The Dane and the Canadian retired with damage, the Chinese driver had power unit issues while the German was 15th.
The pair had their incident at separate laps where the loss was bigger for Magnussen and Latifi. The two went off on the run-off, where the Dane was spun around. The two retired with damage but faulted each other more than themselves.
Magnussen: “I mean, Latifi attacked, ran me out of road and then on the right-hand we made contact. From how I see it, there was nowhere I could really go except off-track and through the bollards, and at that point it was too late. I think he should have given me more space; tough to say now, I need to go see it on television and judge just from there. A shame. We tried our best, started last, had a good car in one-lap pace but not as good in long runs. So we struggled a little bit, but gave it our best. I don’t really think points were on because we had more degradation than our competitors basically. The pace in the beginning of the stints was great but we dropped off massively so yes, onto the next one.”
Latifi: “I haven’t seen a replay yet so you always have one perspective from in the car, when you think you’re not at fault for sure. I went for the move up the inside at Turn 1, we both went a little bit deep. I was quite a bit ahead into Turn 2, it felt like. I felt like I left enough room but again, I have to see the video. It’s normally a place where the radius of the corner kind of squeezes and narrows, so I thought the corner was mine and the position was mine at that point. So I’d have to see the replay. I definitely don’t feel I was at fault – maybe it’s a racing incident, 50-50.”
The other Haas of Schumacher did finish the grand prix but his tangle with Guanyu ended his chances of points as both didn’t take full blame. The German did manage to continue on, but the Chinese retired. His reason wasn’t the hit bit power unit issues.
Schumacher: “I think he had an issue, and it was unnecessary for him to stick to that inside. I haven’t seen it from the outside, I’ll probably come back to it later. We had a difficult start on the medium, the tyre didn’t really work as well as we imagined. We knew it was going to be tough, but not as tough, so we came in early. Unfortunately there was a Safety Car, so it meant for the following people it was a free stop essentially. The pit lane is such here, the difference is quite big, so we were quite far back and then we had contact with Zhou.”
Gunayu: “About 10-15 laps to the end I was suffering with a power unit issue; I tried to do some switching, but eventually that put an end to my race. It was a technical issue, and we will investigate that ahead of Budapest to avoid having it happening again. Apart from that, the race just never went our way, we were struggling all the way through. Regarding the contact with Mick, I was defending my inside in Turn 11, he was trying to go for the outside but then it got to one point where the corner just became too small for me. I think it’s difficult to judge for both of us, as that kind of compromised my race. Unfortunately, that happens in racing, we just have to move forward.”
Here’s the contact between Mick Schumacher and Zhou Guanyu: https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/video.2022-french-grand-prix-zhou-and-schumacher-make-contact.1739342489886483429.html
