Kevin Magnussen has accepted full responsibility for the crash which took place in the second free practice session.
Magnussen, who is deputising for the injured Fernando Alonso this weekend, carried too much speed into turn six , and ran straight on into the barriers.
“We didn’t get too many laps in FP1. Then I went off and damaged the car in the afternoon, so I didn’t get much running under my belt in FP2 either. I tried to push my braking point into Turn Six, then lost the rear on entry. The car still made the apex, but then it snapped at a difficult time. I couldn’t avoid hitting the wall. It was a driver mistake. It’s a shame, but these things happen – my bad – and life goes on.
McLaren endured a tough day, with both drivers well down the time-sheets.
“The positive is that the balance and feeling of the car feels good – we’re not as fast as we’d like, but we’re not too far off the optimum balance in the car. Clearly, there’s a lot more to come, but it’s definitely a good baseline. Hopefully we’ll get a better idea of where we are in FP3 tomorrow. Hopefully we can go into qualifying feeling a bit more confident.”
Images Courtesy of McLaren
