Kevin Magnussen has built a reputation for being an elbows out type of Formula One driver. Despite often being in an inferior car, the Dane has demonstrated over the years his fine defensive driving capabilities and that every inch of asphalt is to be fought for.

Once again K-Mags prowess was on display in the Miami Sprint race. He was pitched against Lewis Hamilton in what should be a far superior Mercedes, yet the Haas driver was able to keep ahead of the seven times champion lap after lap.

 

 

 

K-Mag 10 second penalty for 1st offence

Then at the chicane, K-Mag missed the apex of the previous corner which compromised his line and he was forced to cut the chicane. This move did increase the gap to Hamilton behind who reported K-Mag’s indiscretion over team radio for the benefit of the race stewards.

Then came the bombshell call for Haas and Magnussen. The stewards decided to hand out a ten second time penalty for cutting the corner, even though the Haas did not gain a position. Further this was Magnussen’s first track limits violation and in usual circumstances he would merely have had his lap time deleted. The time penalty accrues after three strikes of deleted lap times.

And it was this penalty which has been strengthened from 5 seconds to 10 this season which forced the following behaviour which occurred. In races of just 30 minutes, a 10 second time penalty is devastating for a driver and with no pit stops either the punishment in effect ends the driver’s race.

As happened in Jeddah, K-Mag was forced to play the team game to ensure the struggling Haas team collected points. He drove as slowly as possible through the tighter sections of the circuit and then flat out along the straights. All the time this consolidated Nico Hulkenberg’s position up ahead while frustrated Lewis Hamilton who was immediately behind the Haas car.

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Hamilton enjoyed the battle

Magnussen did everything in his power to keep the others behind even breaching track limits on another two occasions. He collected a total of three time penalties and it was reported he was being investigated for unsporting behaviour, something even Hamilton didn’t agree with.

When asked after the race, a resigned Kevin Magnussen told Sky F1: “All the penalties were well deserved – no doubt about it, but I had to play the game again.

Kevin described the tactics he deployed as “stupid”  adding “which I don’t like doing, but at the end of the day I did my job as a team player and Nico scored his points because I got that gap for him so Lewis and Tsunoda couldn’t catch him.”

Hamilton who had been most affected by Magnussen’s antics in the Sprint was told of K-Mag’s post race comments and far from being mad, he laughed saying: “I think that’s pretty honest from him – and I think that’s pretty cool,” said the seven-time champion.

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Lewis praises Haas teamwork

“We had a good race. It was a little bit on the edge in some places but that’s what I love. I love racing hard and, for me, I wasn’t really frustrated or anything.

“That’s what you do to work as a team, so bravo.”

However, not everyone in the paddock enjoyed the elongated Hamilton/K-Mag on track action and McLaren’s boss Andreas Stella was incensed over what happened.

“We have a case of behaviour being intentional in terms of damaging another competitor and this behaviour is perpetuated within the same race and repeated over the same season,” said the Italian.

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McLaren boss incredulous

“How can penalties be accumulative? They should be exponential. It is not five plus five plus five equals 15.

“Five plus five plus five equals maybe you need to spend a weekend at home with your family and reflect on your sportsmanship and then go back…”

Stella hits the nail on the head, merely handing out bigger and more time penalties is not conducive as an incentive for many of the F1 drivers. Fighting for the minor points scoring positions means taking more risks at times and as K-Mag has shown now twice this year, playing the team game is also an option even if it means ruining other drivers races.

“If you are out of the points, getting 20 seconds or whatever doesn’t make any difference. But for the competitors you have damaged, you have put them out of their race in a deliberate, perpetuated and repeated way,” Stella added.

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Bring back drive through penalties

A simple solution which would prevent drivers from driving deliberately slowly to hold others up would be for the stewards to issue ‘drive through’ penalties during a race. As the driver being punished pulls into the pit lane, this then releases all those behind him and the problem is neutralised.

In previous rules eras, the stewards investigating an incident would ask a driver to give back a place he’d gained unfairly from off track excursions. Lando Norris revealed the FIA have been asked to return to this system by the F1 drivers, but have so far refused.

“That’s as drivers what we’ve asked for, but they don’t want to do it,” the Briton said. “They say it’s up to us.”

Piastri hadn’t fully understood Magnussen’s situation in that he didn’t first gain unfairly a position from Lewis Hamilton, he just cut the chicane and was punished the very first time he did it. That said the young Aussie has the right idea when it comes to track position disputes going forward.

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Restore instructions to “give back the place”

“In [Magnussen’s] situation, clearly all those problems would be fixed if the FIA said: ‘You need to give the position back and if you don’t, it’s a drive-through’.

“If you know you’re going to face a drive-through, you’re going to give the position back.”

In K-Mag’s case the drive through penalty would have been a way of solving the slow moving roadblock that was the Haas car in the hands of the Dane.

Yet probably some of the most absorbing moments from the Miami F1 Sprint came from the Hamilton/Magnussen duel of which the seven times world champion refused to criticise his rival in the Haas.

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