After F1 driver Kevin Magnussen finished installation lap at the opening practice for the Malaysian Grand Prix, things got dangerous.
While Magnussen’s crew was pushing the car into the garage, flames started forming underneath his engine and the situation escalated. Here’s a video of that:
And here’s more on the incident from Motorsport.com:
Magnussen had completed an installation lap at Sepang before returning to the pits for a quick car check over.
However, as his car was being pushed back in to the garage, flames erupted from underneath the engine cover – with Magnussen being pulled out of the cockpit to escape the danger.
Despite marshals and team members quickly attending to the blaze with extinguishers, the fire refused to die down for several minutes – as fluid was seen pouring from the top of the engine cover.
With more and more fire extinguishers being used to keep the flames at bay, and the team moving to pump fuel out of the car, it was decided that the session needed to be red flagged.
Magnussen was unhurt in the incident but the car remained stranded in the pit lane for several minutes – and appeared badly damaged by the heat and extinguisher powder.
Thankfully, Magnussen was pulled out quickly from the flames. However, the car was ultimately stranded and ended up undergoing a significant amount of damage due to the fire.
This fire comes after Magnussen openly talked about his uncertain contract situation with Renault. It’s unsure at this point whether Magnussen will be coming back with Renault in 2017. The Formula One racer has gone through struggles with other racing teams.
