Kevin Magnussen says the contact between him and Romain Grosjean did not cause his team mate to lose places in the Spanish Grand Prix.

Magnussen overtook Grosjean at the Safety Car restart during Sunday’s race. The pair made contact and Grosjean had to use the escape road to continue. The same happened again when Grosjean tried to retake the position a few laps later.

The pair were told to “calm down” by the team. On the next lap Grosjean was passed by Carlos Sainz Jnr and he lost another place to Daniil Kvyat later in the race.

On the team radio immediately after the race the Haas pair were called to “clear the air” talks by team principal Guenther Steiner. Magnussen said there is “no problems” between the drivers and that his driving hadn’t cost his team mate points.

“At the end of the day nothing happened between us,” he said. “I got P7 and scored six points, he’s got one point. He could have scored more, he had the pace but didn’t for different reasons.

“It wasn’t what happened between me and him that meant we didn’t score more points. He went off-track, came back behind me and then dropped back behind other people so it’s not that I pushed him off the track and then he lost a lot of positions, that didn’t happen.

“We were fighting hard. It looked harder than it was because we had contact on that Safety Car restart which I don’t see what I could have done differently and I don’t think he intended… I think it was a bit of a misjudgement and a lot of cars around and these things can happen in a Safety Car restart or on lap one, things like can happen.

“After that there was no contact. It looked worse because he went off the track and went around the bollard and all that but in the end of the day he came back right behind me and then laps after he lost positions.”

Magnussen pointed out he was fully at the inside of the corner when the pair made contact: “I was on the white line on the inside when we touched.”

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2019 F1 season