Pierre Gasly called upon the Italian Grand Prix stewards to reverse Kevin Magnussen’s one-race Formula 1 ban after their incident led to the Dane reaching the maximum penalty points on his superlicence.
The two made a small degree of contact after going into the Variante della Roggia side by side, which led to neither driver making the corner. Magnussen later passed Gasly on his run to ninth at the flag, which became 10th after a 10-second penalty was applied for his involvement in the incident.
Magnussen subsequently had two penalty points applied to his superlicence, which took him up to the 12 required to trigger a race ban – he had already collected 10 points earlier this season.
Gasly felt that the ultimate contact was “nothing” and “a bit of wheel to wheel”. He added that he would be happy to visit the stewards and encourage them to roll back the decision on Magnussen’s behalf.
“Honestly, this was nothing. The whole afternoon we were dead slow. We really need to get on top of it because I really believed we would have more potential in the race and it was a lot harder,” Gasly said.
“Someone told me he got a 10 seconds penalty. I’m a bit surprised for that because he tried, but it was a bit of wheel to wheel and in the end I really didn’t lose any time. I’m a bit surprised.
“I hope somehow they can revert on that because that will would be definitely unfair. I’ll be happy to do it [vouch for Magnussen with the stewards] – I’ll see what I can do. That will feel very unfair for the incident that it was.”
Kevin Magnussen, Haas VF-24, Pierre Gasly, Alpine A524
Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images
Fernando Alonso also added his sympathies to Magnussen’s predicament, feeling that some of the points Magnussen had accrued were not in line with the initial rationale in clamping down on dangerous driving.
He accepted that although the time penalties were necessary, the added pain of penalty points for what he considered minor infractions was difficult to understand.
“100% [I feel sympathy] because penalty points, as we discussed many times, should be for dangerous driving. Something that is a danger for the sport and for the others,” Alonso said.
“And I think a couple of those points that he accumulated, I’m not sure, I don’t have the list here, but sometimes it’s just pitlane white line, unsafe releases, all these kind of things.
“This is part of racing, this is a drive through, this is a five second penalty. I understand the racing penalties, but the safety penalties is a little bit harder to understand.”
Haas team principal Ayao Komatsu was careful not to comment on Magnussen’s ban, nothing that it was an “accumulation of points” and that “I feel like I should discuss those directly with stewards, rather than saying certain things in public.”
