Renault: Magnussen in the pits and Palmer stuck in Q1

The assessment is far from positive at Renault, where Frédéric Vasseur was pulling a long face after a very disappointing qualifying session for the diamond-shaped company.

Kevin Magnussen, who destroyed his car against the wall at turn 7 during FP3, was unable to participate in qualifying. His chassis, too damaged, needs to be changed and will only be ready for the race: It was quite a significant lateral impact, damaging the wings, suspensions, the floor, as well as the gearbox and the chassis. It’s the chassis damage that kept him from qualifying, and he will use a backup one for the Grand Prix. A lot of work awaits us on his side of the garage in the hours to come. confided Alan Permane, the team’s technical director, at the end of FP3.

For his part, Magnussen could only bite his tongue and be disappointed with the turn of events: « What can I say? I would have obviously preferred to drive rather than watch the qualifications. I was caught out by the wet conditions this morning, and we saw that the walls are quite unforgiving. I’m sorry for the team, who now have a lot of work to do. I will give it my all in the race to make amends tomorrow. »

Jolyon Palmer, on whom all of Renault’s hopes rested in qualifying, failed to bring a smile to his team’s face by not getting past Q1. He will start 17th this evening: « I’m happy with my lap and the fact that the car is now much more to my liking. It’s a shame the track became slippery when I still had fuel left for a lap. It was quite close and it all came down to nothing, fifteen thousandths of a second! The most important thing is that the car continues to improve, and it was like night and day between my settings yesterday and today. »

Confident enough in his car, the Briton even jokes about his accident at the start in Monaco: « Since there are no pedestrian crossings or zebra patterns here, I really can’t wait to see what might happen tomorrow. »