Photo Credit: MoneyGram Haas F1 Team
It’s been a rocky start to the year for Kevin Magnussen, who has been outshone by his veteran teammate Nico Hulkenberg, despite having missed the last three F1 seasons.
The Dane trails the Hulk by seven points in the drivers’ championship having collected just two so far this season. He experienced a miserable Austrian Grand Prix weekend, while Hulkenberg helped to secure three valuable points for this team in the sprint race.
Starting 19th for Sunday’s Grand Prix placed Magnussen on the back foot, eventually deciding to take a pitlane start to improve the setup of his car.
Sadly, the changes did little to improve his pace, as he wound up in a scuffle with AlphaTauri’s Nyck De Vries for the second race in succession.
Earlier in the race, Magnussen was shown the gravel at turn 4 when trying to pass the Dutchman around the outside.
Photo credit: Red Bull Content Pool
However, the bigger incident came halfway through the race when De Vries forced Magnussen off and into the gravel as they battled side-by-side at turn 6.
Nyck in a twist
Speaking about being forced wide by the AlphaTauri in the second incident, Magnussen appeared to sympathise with De Vries’ actions.
“He got a penalty, right? So he did push me off.
“But he’s racing for his future, and [is] maybe in a bit of a desperate situation. There’s nothing I can say, really. He got a penalty, so it is what it is.”
While the stewards deemed De Vries at fault for the clash and gave him a 5-second penalty, both were found to have exceeded track limits on multiple occasions and were handed time penalties after the race, as they wound up classified in 17th and 18th place respectively.
De Vries also gave his thoughts on the penalty he got for the incident with the Danish driver.
“These situations, I think they happen,” he said. “Obviously, with Yuki [Tsunoda] and Zhou [Guanyu], with Max [Verstappen] and Carlos [Sainz], and they happen all the time.
“And each situation is judged slightly differently. And it’s not so black and white. So obviously, we understand the rules, but you’ve got to push to the limit of the rules to make sure you don’t lose out. And sometimes you go beyond, and sometimes you undershoot.”
With a short turnaround before the British Grand Prix this weekend, both drivers will he hoping for better pace from their cars in race trim.
