Beneath F1’s penalty factors system – launched in 2014 – a few of his rivals have approached the brink of 12 factors and automated suspension for one occasion. Daniil Kvyat in 2017, Lewis Hamilton in 2020, and Pierre Gasly final yr. However their time shut the restrict lasted just some 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 rapidly underneath 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’ choice to withdraw its enchantment over his penalty on the Japanese GP three races on meant forfeiting that end result and the chance 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 corresponding to Logan Sargeant on the Chinese language GP – by accident overtaking underneath the protection automobile on the pit exit – might set off the ban.
Having now gone into battle with the risk 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 Autosport. “I’ve to nonetheless preserve pushing in any other case I spend the following 20 races cruising round. I’m not gonna try this. It doesn’t make sense both.”
Kevin Magnussen, Haas VF-24
Photograph by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images
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.
“In case you evaluate with the way in which that I used to be racing Lewis in Miami – that was as exhausting 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 partially arrived at this level for his choice to race excessively defensively within the Miami dash in opposition to Hamilton to try to shield team-mate Nico Hulkenberg’s place there.
Magnussen acknowledges Haas didn’t ask him to do this in Miami, nevertheless it had in an identical scenario in Jeddah at first of the marketing campaign. It has been advised this led to tensions inside the American squad.
“[But] I believe 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 must 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 smart and I don’t when it doesn’t make sense. I attempt a minimum of.”
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 threat with clashes with Hamilton and Sargeant in Miami at first of this month.
Kevin Magnussen, Haas VF-24
Photograph by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images
“There’s been a few conditions this yr the place despite the fact that I wasn’t within the factors, it was nonetheless value combating for it as a result of as a crew we have been nonetheless within the recreation for factors and my place on observe had an impact on how we have been going to attain factors in these races,” he explains.
“So, it’s exhausting to say that I remorse something that I did… I don’t love taking part in this recreation, but additionally on the similar time, I do all the time try to keep inside the guidelines. Despite the fact that I’ve been attempting to combat actually exhausting with some guys and I’ve gone over the restrict and I’ve received a penalty. Then I settle for the penalty.
“There’s been a query of whether or not the principles are right for this, which I can positively sympathise with that and I’ve given my concepts of how they are often higher. I do see there is a matter with the principles, however I didn’t make the principles. Don’t hate the participant, ? It’s simply the way in which it’s.”
Simply as he did in Imola, Magnussen advised F1 officers ought to as an alternative take a “allow them to race” strategy 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 tips.
These have been made much more intensive and complicated this season. Within the explicit case of drivers making an attempt overtakes on the skin – as Magnussen was in opposition to Sargeant within the Miami GP – the consideration that the attacking driver should be capable to keep inside observe limits always naturally requires the defender to be particularly cooperative.
On this, Magnussen feels subsequently “they’ve put these items within the guidelines which means for those who permit the driving force on the skin to simply flip into you if the steps earlier than, main into that, are in a sure method, then he can simply flip in (smacks arms collectively) and also you’ll get a penalty – the man on the within”.
“The place is the frequent 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 smart.”
Kevin Magnussen, Haas F1 Crew
Photograph by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images
However, having arrived at this level in such controversy, in a technique Magnussen can be feeling higher off for it. This, he hopes, might imply he rides out his historic F1 threat with out lacking a race.
“In a few of the conversations with the FIA, I additionally perceive them higher,” he concludes. “I nonetheless don’t like the way in which the principles are. However that is additionally one thing [where] they’re attempting to do their finest.
“I believe on this course of I’ve additionally realized one thing. So, I do suppose with a few of it, they’ve taken a special stance, they’ve defined a number of issues, which suggests I might in all probability keep away from this higher than I might earlier than.
“However I might nonetheless find yourself in a scenario the place if I do one thing accidentally then [I’ll get the ban].”