During the Monaco qualifying session, Kevin Magnussen, the Danish driver, questioned a decision to stop his lap during Q2. He was slightly ahead of his previous lap time as he approached Massenet. But the team told him to stop at Beau Rivage and try again later.
However, his next lap wasn’t as fast as his first attempt, so he couldn’t advance to the next part of qualifying. He ended up in 15th place, three positions behind his teammate, Nico Hulkenberg, who he had been faster than in Q1.
Magnussen was really angry about the decision, saying it was made for “no reason”. He got stuck in traffic towards the end of the session.
He explained that they had extra fuel in case they encountered traffic on the first lap. They planned to abort that lap and try again. He started the lap well, gaining more than a tenth of a second in the first turn. But they stopped the lap for no clear reason and started another one, which he had traffic on throughout.
Magnussen believed the car had the speed to make it into the next qualifying round, and missing that chance was a big disappointment. He hinted that he’s been frustrated with the team’s decisions for a while now, saying it’s been the same every day and weekend.
He thought they could have done better and need to figure out how to improve because they can’t keep making the same mistakes.
