Singapore Grand Prix – Haas’ Kevin Magnussen may have set the fastest lap of the race, but the Dane’s race was ruined by a plastic bag in the closing stages.
Kevin Magnussen was left frustrated by the closing stages of the race at Marina Bay in Singapore. The Haas F1 driver had been contending for a lower points finish. He had a great opening lap in which he moved up from P13 to P9 and then benefitting from the undercut after pitting for Hard tyres on Lap 19. However, he finished in P17 and last of the classified runners after a disastrous second half of the race. He was forty seconds behind the next driver, Robert Kubica in P16.
The Safety Car interventions in the second half of the race meant that he was constantly vulnerable to attack and slowly but surely Magnussen was shuffled backwards down the order. His ability to fight back was also hampered by a plastic bag getting caught on his front wing, which meant he had to pit again on Lap 56, having been passed by Robert Kubica’s Williams and falling to plum last.
Armed with the Soft tyre, Magnussen then set a fastest laptime of the Singapore Grand Prix with a 1:42.301. However, as he was outside the top ten, he wasn’t eligible to pick up the race point for fastest lap – the first time since the rule was introduced to Formula 1 in 2019 that this point hasn’t been awarded.
“Unfortunately setting the fastest lap wasn’t worth anything for me.” said Magnussen afterwards. Bemoaning his race, he said: “We were fighting in the top ten but got unlucky with the safety cars. We’d been working so hard, we were doing such a good job to get into the top ten on merit – it was not with luck or lucky pitstops or anything.”
“We had a good first lap and good pace in the car. Then we just had all these safety cars work against us. On top of that we had a plastic bag over the front wing, we had to pit to remove that. It was a disaster from there. I really feel bad as it had been a good race and the whole team did such a good job, then we get it taken away from us in a cruel way.”
What a frustrating end to this race. Car was finally going well in the race and we looked good for P8 until we got all those safety cars and on top of that, a plastic bag stuck on the front wing which ruined the aero (I know – ridiculous). On to Russia 💪🏼 pic.twitter.com/pxpxeQodwP
— Kevin Magnussen (@KevinMagnussen) September 22, 2019
