F1 News

Steiner gives reason for Magnussen's furious radio message

Steiner gives reason for Magnussen's furious radio message

11-06-2019 19:25

Haas boss Guenther Steiner has explained why Kevin Magnussen was so unhappy over the radio during Sunday's Canadian Grand Prix, saying that driving the Haas was the "worst experience" he'd ever had "in any car".

Magnussen's mechanics stayed up until the early hours of Sunday morning to fix Magnussen's car, which was in pieces after his high speed shunt with the pit wall following a brush with the Wall of Champions in Q2.

The crash caused substantial damage to the car and forced him to start from the pitlane, and this is why the car was so bad for raceday.

Steiner explained, accoring to insideracing.com: "In the rebuild of Kevin’s car, we tried a little bit of a different set-up because we could, because of the pit lane start.

"Obviously that didn’t work. We know now. At least we learned that one. It was a conscious choice but not a choice to make the car worse, it was to try and make it better and it didn’t work."

Steiner added that the Danish driver apologised to the team over the radio following his comments: "He apologised to everyone on the radio after the race. It was good he came over [the radio].

"Everybody is frustrated, the guys work until three in the morning. It’s not something that motivates you and you don’t need any more discussions on how bad it is.

"What I wanted to avoid is the guys getting beaten down more than they need to be.

"After the race, he didn’t mean to be critical, he just tried to explain a situation that this was a bad situation, but not blaming anybody.

"When you’re on the other side of the radio, you don’t know that. Maybe I could understand it, but the guys do not know because they don’t know the full story.

"He apologised to everybody, which is something a grown-up does."