After ten years in Formula One, Kevin Magnussen is heading for pastures new next season. Despite the strong performance in the final stretch of the season, his lacklustre run in the earlier races, and constantly being outperformed by his teammate Nico Hülkenberg leaves him 12th in our 2024 F1 Driver Rankings.
Defensive or overaggressive?
Kevin Magnussen is known for his defensive and aggressive racing style which has helped his team multiple times this season.
However, there are limits to how much aggression a driver can show on track. Magnussen’s aggression and miscalculations in certain situations resulted in multiple race incidents this season.
More often than not, these incidents resulted in the end of another driver’s race rather than his own. One of the most notable examples being the 2024 Miami Grand Prix.
Williams driver Logan Sargeant was Magnussen’s first victim of the season. On lap 29, the Haas driver collided into the the American driver, sending him into the wall at turn 3. This ended Sargeant’s race, while Magnussen finished P19.
This also granted Magnussen his sixth time penalty of the weekend, having earned himself multiple penalties in the Sprint for his extremely aggressive defensive tactics against Lewis Hamilton.
Monaco Grand Prix Opening Lap
Sargeant wasn’t the only driver this year who had an early exit due to a collision with the Dane. During the Monaco Grand Prix, Red Bull driver Sergio Pérez had a frustratingly early exit after he made contact with Magnussen on the run up to Beau Rivage.
Pérez, who started the race 16th on the grid ahead of both Haas drivers, had his car clipped from behind by Magnussen at about 150mph. The Mexican’s car speared into the barriers and then rebounded across the track into the other wall. In the process both Haas cars were collected and seriously damaged.
Despite the damage and heavy crash, Magnussen was never investigated for the incident and no penalty was given.
Pérez had stepped out to call out the Danish driver for his “dangerous driving”. He wouldn’t be the first this season.
Penalties galore and a race ban
A driver can accumulate a total of 12 penalty points on their super license in a 12-month period before they are handed a race ban.
After only seven rounds into the 2024 season, Haas found themselves at P7 in the constructors. This result surpassed all expectations following their 2023 season.
This was largely due to Nico Hulkenberg who had scored 6 out of the 7 points Haas earned. However, Magnussen also played a huge role with his bold defensive tactics that helped Hülkenberg score a few extra points. The German driver has also publicly thanked the Dane for playing the team game.
These extra points however came at the expense of Magnussen. Having accumulated a total of 10 penalty points after Miami.
3 points were awarded for his collison with Alex Albon during the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, with another 2 for crashing into Yuki Tsunoda in Shanghai.
And a record number of 5 points during the Miami weekend. He earned 3 during the Sprint race for his defensive tactics against Lewis Hamilton which allowed Hulkenberg to score extra points, and another 2 for his collison with Sargeant.
The final nail to the coffin came during the Italian Grand Prix. Contact with the Alpine of Pierre Gasly at the second chicane as he tried to overtake the French driver granted Magnussen his final 2 penalty points.
This brought the Dane to a total of 12 penalty points. Magnussen received a race ban for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix; Ollie Bearman took his seat that weekend.
Magnussen became the first driver in 12 years to receive a race ban and returned with a clean slate at the Singapore Grand Prix.
Newly found confidence
Following the aerodynamic upgrades Haas brought coming into Austin, we witnessed an improvement from them, and Magnussen came alive.
The Dane credited the updates as the reason for his improved race results and his confidence in the VF-24.
While his teammate may not have found the upgrades as helpful, they still brought Magnussen to a season high result of P7 during the Mexican Grand Prix, earning himself 6 points.
He was even pushing Max Verstappen hard in the closing stages of the race.
Coming up short against Hülkenberg
Ultimately the 32-year-old Dane was not renewed because he could not match his German stablemate.
He was beaten 19-50 in points, and the Grand Prix qualifying head-to-head was 13-31.
While strategy was butchered on his side of the garage a couple of times this year, and despite his amazing team play to assist Hülkenberg on multiple occasions, Magnussen was ultimately not fast enough.
Nonetheless, his racing career continues next year. The 2014 Australian Grand Prix podium finisher should achieve success in sports cars.
