(Motorsports news) Magnussen was twisting his Haas through the Esses in the second sector on lap 32 of 71 when he appeared to suffer a left-rear suspension breakdown, sending his vehicle hard into the left-hand barriers at Turn 9. Magnussen’s car was totaled, but he was able to crawl out of his wrecked Haas alone.
“He’s being kept in the medical center for a little while longer just for standard observation,” Haas said of Magnussen. “Incident looks to be suspension failure possibly heat-induced.” Due to the massive amount of debris, the race was red-flagged after a brief safety car stint with 36 laps remaining.
Max Verstappen pitted for new hard tyres in response to Magnussen’s incident, but he maintained his lead over Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton. In the second Ferrari, Carlos Sainz finished fourth, followed by AlphaTauri’s Daniel Ricciardo, who comfortably kept up with the frontrunners’ speed in the top five.
The race was scheduled to resume at 15:14 local time with a standing start, with all drivers free to swap tyres. That’s poor news for Lando Norris of McLaren and Alex Albon of Williams, who pitted after the safety car came out and fell numerous spots. Yuki Tsunoda of AlphaTauri was the largest beneficiary of the red flag, moving up from 18th to seventh after an early pitstop.
Earlier, Sergio Perez stunned the home crowd when he crashed out at Turn 1 of the opening lap after colliding with Leclerc. The collision damaged Leclerc’s front wing, and the stewards are looking into whether or not the Ferrari driver was driving an unsafe vehicle. The dangling front wing endplate of the Monegasque driver finally broke off in Turn 1 on lap 4, resulting in a virtual safety car.
After starting behind both Leclerc and Sainz, Verstappen was given free rein to jump into the lead, with the Dutchman chasing his 16th victory of a crushingly successful 2023 season. Perez has been deflated. Perez said he took a risk starting fourth on the grid to try to win his home event.
“I’m disappointed, without a doubt, because today was my chance.” I had a great start and was solely focused on winning the race. “I want to stand on the podium,” Perez explained. “I saw an opportunity and took advantage of it.” In retrospect, I took a gamble, but if I had pulled it off, I would have led out of Turn 1.”
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