Alonso furious with Magnussen over Q2 incident

Fernando Alonso appeared to mock Kevin Magnussen when the Dane dropped out in Q2 after almost coming together at Turn 1.

Alonso was ahead entering the first part of the chicane but Magnussen did not yield his position on the inside, and both their laps were compromised as Alonso ran wide exiting the section. It was not the first time the pair have come together this season.

“Magnussen wanted to race into Turn 1,” Alonso told his team, appearing to snigger slightly, while the Dane was fuming, asking the Haas pitwall: “What the hell was Fernando doing?”

In the aftermath, the TV feed captured an argument between McLaren CEO Zak Brown and Haas team boss Gunther Steiner in the pitlane.

Magnussen was in line to go comfortably into Q3, with Haas looking strong all season but an ill-timed clash with Alonso prevented his progress. The Spaniard on the other hand, was happy to just get into Q2 with his McLaren proving not too competitive.

“There are many classes of drivers and then there are the Haas ones, who have the third or fourth-best car of the grid and are out in Q2,” said Alonso.

“I got into Q2, which is one of the things that I wanted. It doesn’t change much for me, I guess more for them, but it’s fun, a lot of fun.”

He also accused the Haas driver of cutting in line at the start of the warm-up lap, seemingly justifying his decision to round the outside of the Dane.

“We were all running together at the end of the out-lap and with all that traffic one of the Haas cars decided to overtake and start the lap in the middle of all the cars that were more or less in position,” he said.

“So we started the lap together and we reached the first corner together and we ruined both our laps.

Both Alonso and Magnussen have been summoned to the FIA stewards over the incident.

Meanwhile, Ferrari enjoyed the best home race possible as Kimi Raikkonen stormed to pole with the fastest lap in F1 history, breaking Juan Pablo Montoya’s long-standing record. It was the Finn’s first since the Monaco GP last year.

It was a frantic final qualifying session as Hamilton used tow from teammate Bottas to go fastest initially before Vettel, running behind him, beat his time by a 100th of a second. However, it was just not enough to beat his world champion teammate.

Raikkonen looked just off Vettel’s pace throughout qualifying before pulling out all his stops and guarantee a great start to the weekend for the Scuderia.