Perez crashed out on the climb up Beau Rivage on the opening lap following contact with Magnussen’s Haas.
The impact tore three wheels off the Red Bull, along with the front and rear wings, while a nearby photographer was injured by the flying debris and taken to the medical centre.
Race control quickly threw the red flag as a total of three cars sat stricken on the race track – Perez, Magnussen, and Nico Hulkenberg – which was littered with debris.
Exiting Sainte Devote, Magnussen had managed to get his front wheels alongside Perez’s rears.
The run up the hill is sinuous, with the road winding back and forth somewhat. As the barrier began to ease towards the left, the Haas driver found himself caught between the wall and the Red Bull, with contact inevitable.
“I think I was with my front alongside Perez’s rear, from the exit of Turn 1 on the run up to Turn 3,” Magnussen explained.
“He goes towards the wall, the wall comes a little bit back towards the track, and I had nowhere to go. I don’t know if he didn’t see me or what, but I can’t just disappear out of the blue.
“I made contact with the wall and him at the same time, and unfortunately, we had a crash.”
While Magnussen’s explanation suggested that the incident was a racing incident, Perez did not share that view.
“If you see my onboard, at no point [do] you see Kevin’s car, not even close to me, alongside me, and you could see that the wall is just getting closer and closer and to keep it flat out,” Perez argued.
“It was either contact with my car [or] with the barrier. There was just simply no room for both cars.
“At some point he had to realise that, you know.
“I’ve been in that location and many times when you are the car behind, you just have to realise that it’s time to back off before things get closer to you.”
Once Perez had been fired into the wall, his car skidded back across the track, where it collected the hapless Hulkenberg.
“It’s just disappointing because everyone in the team, we all invest a lot of energy and time, and it’s just frustrating these Sundays,” the German noted.
“Nobody has won a grand prix in lap one,” he added.
“You have to take calculated risk… There’s always that risk-reward question that you have to address yourself.”
Though the incident ended the race for three cars and caused a lengthy red flag, officials opted not to investigate, deeming it an opening lap racing incident.
Consistent with his stance on Magnussen’s behaviour, Perez was unaccepting of that response, too.
“I’m very surprised because the amount of damage and how dangerous the damage was, I’m fairly surprised,” he admitted.
“We need to ask for a reason why it’s not been investigated because, without an investigation, we don’t get a reason why it wasn’t a penalty.
“I get the lap one, let them race, but I think this was more dangerous driving, just to keep it flat out knowing that they were going to come contact at some point.
“I think that was some dangerous driving.”
Magnussen has accrued 10 of 12 allowed penalty points on his Super Licence already this season. Another penalty would almost certainly rule the Dane out for a race.
“I don’t think he really thinks about it, you know, about the outcome,” Perez reasoned of Magnussen’s approach given his predicament.
“You sometimes find yourself in a position and you have to take a very quick decision to say, okay, there’s only one way of it and it’s going to be contact.”
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