Huge Monaco GP crash felt “super weird”

Schumacher lost control of his Haas F1 car while coming through the Swimming Pool chicane on Lap 26 of the race, snapping to the right-hand side of the track. His car glanced the armco before then going into the tecpro barrier at the exit of the corner.

The accident saw the rear-end and gearbox of his Haas VF-22 detach on impact, but Schumacher was quick to report over the radio that he was OK.

The race was initially put under a virtual safety car before a full safety car followed. Race control ultimately decided to throw a red flag so that full repairs of the barrier could be completed.

Schumacher was taken to the medical centre as a precaution after the accident, but was quickly cleared by the FIA staff.

Upon arriving in the media pen, Schumacher confirmed he felt OK, and that he was confused by how he had lost control of the car.

“It felt super weird,” Schumacher said.

“From what I saw on the video, it just seemed like we were like 10 centimetres further out. And that kind of triggered maybe a wet patch or whatever with the front wheel, which then translated into a rear wheel slide.

“That’s where basically the rear came around. I tried to correct it and that’s why it went to the left.

“It’s very, very unfortunate and very annoying.”

Schumacher’s crash marked the end of Haas’s race after team-mate Kevin Magnussen was forced to retire a few laps earlier due to a problem on his car.

Magnussen said it was “a power unit issue of some sort”, and that he felt his pace on the fringes of the points at that point had been good.

“It was going well until that, we were in P11, much faster than [Valtteri] Bottas, Magnussen said.

“I was really looking forward to that pit stop. I had just said to the team I wanted to pit for slicks, a couple of guys behind had already pitted for intermediates, we were still on full wet and wanted to go straight to the slick, and that was…