The enormous crash triggered by Kevin Magnussen and Sergio Perez brought the Monaco Grand Prix to a crash on the first lap.
The dramatic incident and its aftermath was captured by fans overlooking the Beau Rivage sequence where the Red Bull and both Haas cars ploughed into the barriers.
How the crash happened
The crash occurred as the field climb from Sainte Devote to Massenet. These are the first two true corners on a lap of the Monte Carlo circuit, but the route connecting them is anything but straight. The Beau Rivage section (properly called the Avenue d’Ostende) winds left and right, and drivers plot a straight line between the winding barriers.
This presents a challenge when two cars attempt to climb it side-by-side. In the case of Perez and Magnussen, the Haas was beginning to draw alongside the Red Bull as the racing line brought Perez closer to the barrier on his right, leading to contact as the first video shows:
When the pair made contact, only Nico Hulkenberg and Zhou Guanyu were behind them. Hulkenberg attempted to pass the crash scene, and nearly made it, but was struck by Perez’s spinning, wrecked RB20.
Zhou’s delay helps Sainz
Zhou got on the brakes and avoided the crash entirely. With so much wreckage on the track, including loose wheels rolling around, it would have been obvious to him that the race was going to be red-flagged. He therefore had every reason to take his time approaching and passing the wrecked cars.
This turned out to be highly significant for Carlos Sainz Jnr’s race. He had collided with Oscar Piastri at the start, as the first video also shows, and pulled off later on the lap with a puncture, falling from third place to 16th.
When the race was red-flagged, all the every driver bar the delayed Zhou had passed through the first timing sector. Because Zhou hadn’t got that far, race control could not use that point on the track to establish a running order for the restart. Instead they had to use the drivers’ positions at the second Safety Car line, which can be seen at the pit exit in the first video. Sainz was third at that point, so got his position back:
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Perez’s hard hit
The low-level views offered by the television footage can obscure how much the barriers curve at this section of track. This video shows the steep angle at…
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