Toro Rosso’s Daniil Kvyat played down his collision with Renault’s Kevin Magnussen, after the two came together at Rascasse.
The Russian driver tried to get past Magnussen on the inside of the corner, even though it looked like a move that would end in a collision. He was handed a three-place grid penalty for the Canadian Grand Prix.
“I don’t believe in luck but today we were very unlucky,” Kvyat said after the race. “We had what I think was an electrical issue at the start of the race, which meant I was stuck in 60kph for the first couple of laps.
“We tried to sort it out and all of a sudden the car felt like it was working well again, but by that point we had lost a lot of time and it was very difficult to try and un-lap myself.”
The weekend has not been the best for Kvyat, his second race since getting demoted from the Red Bull team. He thinks that it was a racing incident, and didn’t back down on it.
“I tried to go for it, but then the incident with Magnussen happened, where none of us wanted to let each other by… This is racing and unfortunately sometimes things like this happen.
“It’s definitely a missed opportunity, as here in Monaco we had been looking strong all weekend, but all we can do now is to keep on working hard for the next races, starting with Canada in two weeks’ time.”
The Russian is currently level on points with Romain Grosjean and one point behind Sergio Perez, the latter finishing in a well-deserved third place after the chequered flag dropped.
