LE CASTELLET, France -- Kevin Magnussen said he would have easily qualified seventh for the French Grand Prix were it not for the driving of Kimi Raikkonen in the closing moments of Q3.
In the final minutes of the session Raikkonen was engaged in a series of radio messages with the Ferrari pit wall over how to approach the last laps. The 2007 world champion had fuel for three laps and wanted to do one push lap, a cool down lap, followed by a final push lap.
Raikkonen made a mistake on his first lap but was then told to keep pushing on the second lap, only to hit traffic and have to back off again. This meant he slowed ahead of Magnussen, who was on his out-lap (preparing for the final flying lap of the session). Magnussen passed Raikkonen at the end of the lap, only for the Ferrari driver to then speed up and overtake down the main straight for his own attempt.
That ruined Magnussen's lap, forcing him to settle for ninth on the grid. Raikkonen bailed out of his third attempt a few corners later.
When asked if he was upset after the session, a visibly agitated Magnussen told the media: "Yes I'm upset. Because what is he doing?
"He f---ed all his laps. He had fuel for I don't know how many laps, everyone else has fuel for one lap so to begin with I thought he would box because he f---ed his lap. Then he tries again immediately the lap after that, overtakes us and then backs off again, so surely he's going to box?
"But then he tries again. So it's three laps in a row that he tried to push, it makes no sense. There's no way to predict what he's going to do. Then he obviously overtakes me into Turn 1 and f---s my lap and then doesn't even complete his lap."
He added: "I don't know if what he did was against the rules but it's impossible to predict but if he's stopping at Turn 14, then he's pushing, then he's stopping -- that's erratic driving in my mind."
"[He passed] down the main straight, side by side. If you're that confused then try not to get in the way of everyone else.
It was then suggested by one of the journalists in attendance that the stewards rarely penalised a driver from one of the top three drivers, to which he said: "Exactly, you said it. I think people get it. Normally you get a penalty. Sometimes it seems like it's difficult to give out the penalties."
It turned out to be a prophetic statement, as the stewards' investigation into the incident led to no penalty.
The statement said: "The Stewards are not of the view that the driver of car 7 [Raikkonen] "unnecessarily impeded" car 20 [Magnussen] In addition, the Stewards do not consider that the driver of car 7 drove "unnecessarily slowly""
"Despite the negative effect the incident had on the lap of car 20, the Stewards decline to take any further action."
A messy Q3 has become a regular part of Raikkonen's 2018 so far and the Finn used his own post-qualifying session to suggest his team needs to work on its operation on his side of the garage in future.
"I don't think why it has been [like this] . In the beginning of the year it seemed to be pretty straightforward and now, suddenly, we struggle in the last qualifying sessions. We have some work to be done on that side.
"But it's not like you are driving well and then, suddenly, you lose it between two sessions. You know, it's just a lot of things that aren't going our way."