Kevin Magnussen returns to racing this weekend in Singapore after serving a one-race ban, and the Haas charger is calling for change in the way the sport’s stewards regulate racing incidents.
The Dane was suspended for one race after reaching the critical 12-point threshold on his Superlicence following a skirmish with Alpine’s Pierre Gasly in the Italian Grand Prix at Monza.
The pair made contact at the Variante chicane and Gasly was forced onto the run-off area. While pundits and many of Magnussen’s colleagues judged the move as a misdemeanor, an opinion also shared by Gasly himself, the stewards sanctioned the Haas driver with a 10-second penalty for causing a collision and two penalty points, which triggered the one-race ban.
While Magnussen was pleased to have a rare weekend off, he remains frustrated over the FIA’s current approach to penalizing drivers.
“It was a weekend off,” Magnussen told media in Singapore on Thursday. “A little extra bonus weekend off with the family. So, in many ways, nice to have that little surprise holiday.
“You get punished, and then you come back, and you’re like all ready to… f**k s**t up now! It’s funny how that works. In a way, it hasn’t really affected me.
“I think with those points, it was annoying to have the knowledge that the next time anything happens, there’s a race ban. It’s nice to know that’s not a factor anymore.
“But I actually don’t think it has affected me in how I’ve driven. I’ve really tried to say look, I need to crack on here, and whatever happens happens.”
Magnussen, a veteran of 179 Grands Prix starts who made his F1 debut in 2014 with McLaren believes the sport has become overregulated, particularly when it comes to wheel-to-wheel racing.
“My own opinion is it’s not a great situation for F1, I think, to restrict racing in that way,” he argued.
“It feels bad when the sport you love so much changes in a way you don’t appreciate.
“I think I’m certainly one that, I like hard racing, and I think that’s a big part of the beauty of motorsport, is the battles.”
Magnussen elaborated on his view that the thrill of racing lies in pushing the limits.
“The on the limit and slightly over, that balance between going slightly over and under the limit is what makes your race,” he continued.
“At the moment, it feels like they’re punishing ridiculous things.
“I’d like to see, personally as a Formula 1 fan, I’d like to see the sport open up again and allowing the great racing that can be seen on track.”
He also called for a revision of the penalty points system, acknowledging its complexity.
“The penalty points thing is… a slightly strange one,” he admitted. “Maybe it would be better to kind of give race bans for extraordinarily dangerous driving, or for a specific incident, and not like accumulate.
“It can get into situations where you get punished harder than others because, like in my case, I came into the season with zero points, accumulated all of them, and then I knew the rest of the season that none of these points were running out.
“So I actually got punished harder because of not having had any points last year. So in a way, I should have got some points last year!
“But yeah, I just think it’s a very complex thing. So for me to sit here and say we should do this, this and this, and that would be the right way forward is very difficult.”
As Magnussen returns to the cockpit, his words reflect a broader frustration among drivers with the current state of stewarding in F1.
Whether his call for more leniency will lead to changes remains to be seen, but his stance highlights a growing debate within the sport about how to best balance safety with the spirit of competition.
Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter
