Magnussen under pressure as Haas boss disputes Perez crash claim

Kevin Magnussen has come under fire from Haas boss Ayao Komatsu following a crash that wiped out both of the team's cars on the first lap of the recent Monaco Grand Prix.

Magnussen has defended himself to the hilt since colliding with Red Bull's Sergio Perez on the run up the hill out of Sainte Devote, an incident which resulted in the Dane's team-mate, Nico Hulkenberg, being caught in the aftermath after both had started on the back row of the grid after being disqualified from qualifying for a technical infringement.

Magnussen has insisted there was a gap and that Perez should have left him room, firmly believing the Mexican had seen him in his mirrors, and that he was being pushed to the wall and intimidated.

Komatsu, however, clearly did not see it that way and has made his view clear to Magnussen, who is now under instruction to be on his best behaviour over this weekend's Canadian Grand Prix.

"In Monaco, he had the speed from FP1, and then in qualifying he couldn't quite deliver," assessed Komatsu. "Of course, we had a team issue such that we had to start from the back.

"From that moment, we had to go for an alternative strategy, splitting the drivers. You have got to play the long game.

"So the decision-making process, at that instant, to go for that gap, which wasn't really there, it's not necessarily right.

"He expected Perez to leave more room for him, but that's not up to him. In the end, there was a point where everything was under his control, where he could have made a decision to back off, which he didn't.

"So we spoke about all this completely openly, to then just reset for this weekend again."

Magnussen given Canadian GP warning

Referencing a solid weekend in the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix after a wretched race weekend in Miami when he collected points on his super licence that have left him two away from a race ban, Komatsu added: "He's done it at Imola, so he needs to deliver a clean weekend here.

"This circuit could play to our car's strengths and hide our weaknesses. Kevin is good at a circuit like this, so I expect him to be able to deliver a good, clean race weekend here."

Fortunately for Magnussen and Haas, whilst the damage to the car in Monaco looked severe, it was not as bad as initially feared.

"Kevin's car had quite a bit of a damage," said Komatsu. "In terms of how big a job it was, it wasn't huge. It was a not a minor job, but still, at least, a very big job, just not major major, if you like.

"So there was no concern over preparing a car for this event but there was reasonably big damage."