Beneath F1’s penalty factors system – launched in 2014 – a few of his rivals have approached the edge of 12 factors and computerized suspension for one occasion. Daniil Kvyat in 2017, Lewis Hamilton in 2020, and Pierre Gasly final yr. However their time shut the restrict lasted only a few months in every case.
Rewind 27 years and Jacques Villeneuve confronted having to go 9 races with a suspended race ban sentence from the 1997 Italian Grand Prix – the place he’d pushed too shortly below yellow flags in pre-race warm-up.
Successfully this was a nine-month sanction given the differing size of the calendar again then, however Williams’ resolution to withdraw its attraction over his penalty on the Japanese GP three races on meant forfeiting that outcome and the danger being eliminated.
Magnussen has an 11-month wait – assuming he begins the 2025 season along with his Haas contract up for renewal this yr.
That’s 17 complete races in 2024 the place even an innocuous incident comparable to Logan Sargeant on the Chinese language GP – unintentionally overtaking below the security automobile on the pit exit – may set off the ban.
Having now gone into battle with the menace hanging over him for the primary time final weekend at Imola, how did Magnussen discover it?
“I didn’t give it some thought,” he replies in an unique interview with Motorsport.com. “I’ve to nonetheless maintain pushing in any other case I spend the subsequent 20 races cruising round. I’m not gonna do this. It doesn’t make sense both.”
Kevin Magnussen, Haas VF-24
Picture by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Pictures
Magnussen is referring to how he’s already laid out his case, once more, in questioning how he has ended up on this place. We’re talking within the Haas motorhome after Monaco has been given a soaking on Thursday afternoon. The Dane, as ever, is immaculate. And right here he’s articulate too.
“For those who examine with the best way that I used to be racing Lewis in Miami – that was as arduous as I can race anybody,” he says when requested if the sense he’d held again extra racing rivals at Imola was the truth in his Haas cockpit, having partly arrived at this level for his resolution to race excessively defensively within the Miami dash in opposition to Hamilton to try to defend team-mate Nico Hulkenberg’s place there.
Magnussen acknowledges Haas didn’t ask him to do this in Miami, but it surely had in the same scenario in Jeddah in the beginning of the marketing campaign. It has been steered this led to tensions throughout the American squad.
“[But] I feel you perceive the explanations and the dynamics in that,” he provides. “After which Imola it was trying doable for me to go and catch these guys and get factors, so I didn’t have to go loopy there.
“It’s not like my default. I try to try to weigh it out and the professionals and cons and do it when it is sensible and I don’t when it doesn’t make sense. I strive no less than.”
In quarter-hour in Monaco, Magnussen seems each repentant and defiant at his prolonged dilemma.
The saga that started along with his driving in opposition to Tsunoda and Alex Albon at that Jeddah spherical – of the Albon conflict that earned him three factors for inflicting a collision he says, “nothing occurred” – and dramatically elevated in danger with clashes with Hamilton and Sargeant in Miami in the beginning of this month.
Kevin Magnussen, Haas VF-24
Picture by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Pictures
“There’s been a few conditions this yr the place regardless that I wasn’t within the factors, it was nonetheless value preventing for it as a result of as a group we have been nonetheless within the recreation for factors and my place on monitor had an impact on how we have been going to attain factors in these races,” he explains.
“So, it’s arduous to say that I remorse something that I did… I don’t love enjoying this recreation, but additionally on the similar time, I do all the time try to keep throughout the guidelines. Regardless that I’ve been attempting to combat actually arduous with some guys and I’ve gone over the restrict and I’ve acquired a penalty. Then I settle for the penalty.
“There’s been a query of whether or not the foundations are appropriate for this, which I can undoubtedly sympathise with that and I’ve given my concepts of how they are often higher. I do see there is a matter with the foundations, however I didn’t make the foundations. Don’t hate the participant, you already know? It’s simply the best way it’s.”
Simply as he did in Imola, Magnussen steered F1 officers ought to as an alternative take a “allow them to race” method he encountered along with his 2021-2022 IndyCar and sportscar outings within the USA. He additionally questions the knowledge of the 2024 replace to F1’s racing pointers.
These have been made way more in depth and sophisticated this season. Within the explicit case of drivers making an attempt overtakes on the surface – as Magnussen was in opposition to Sargeant within the Miami GP – the consideration that the attacking driver should have the ability to keep inside monitor limits always naturally requires the defender to be particularly cooperative.
On this, Magnussen feels due to this fact “they’ve put these things within the guidelines which means when you enable the motive force on the surface to only flip into you if the steps earlier than, main into that, are in a sure method, then he can simply flip in (smacks palms collectively) and also you’ll get a penalty – the man on the within”.
“The place is the widespread sense? The place is the intuition? Why do we want all these guidelines?” he provides. “Simply allow us to race and allow us to use our instincts – all of us wanna end the race, all of us wanna be wise.”
Kevin Magnussen, Haas F1 Group
Picture by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Pictures
However, having arrived at this level in such controversy, in a method Magnussen can also be feeling higher off for it. This, he hopes, may imply he rides out his historic F1 danger with out lacking a race.
“In a number of the conversations with the FIA, I additionally perceive them higher,” he concludes. “I nonetheless don’t like the best way the foundations are. However that is additionally one thing [where] they’re attempting to do their greatest.
“I feel on this course of I’ve additionally discovered one thing. So, I do suppose with a few of it, they’ve taken a unique stance, they’ve defined a couple of issues, which implies I may in all probability keep away from this higher than I may earlier than.
“However I may nonetheless find yourself in a scenario the place if I do one thing accidentally then [I’ll get the ban].”
