Kevin Magnussen, Haas, Hungaroring, 2024

2024 Formula 1 driver rankings #14: Kevin Magnussen

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Kevin Magnussen’s season came alive over the final rounds, once Haas had got the VF-24 working well and he no longer had the threat of a ban hanging over him. The latter change came, of course, because he suffered the indignity of being the first Formula 1 driver to incur a one-race ban by collecting 12 penalty points.

Nonetheless, once Magnussen returned he produced most of his best results of the year. He was in great form at Austin, taking points in the sprint race and running strongly in the grand prix before making a costly second pit stop which the team soon regretted.

Magnussen was in great form in Mexico where he qualified well and raced to seventh place. Persisting with a one-stop strategy in Las Vegas did not pay off but he was back in the points with ninth place in Qatar, passing Albon.

Had he performed at this level all season long, regularly taking Haas into the lower half of the points places, the team’s decision to replace him would have been hard to justify. But the first three-quarters of Magnussen’s 2024 season were less successful.

Kevin Magnussen

Best Worst
GP start 7 20 (x2)
GP finish 7 19 (x2)
Points 16

It didn’t help matters that the team often called on him to play something of a sacrificial role to help Nico Hulkenberg. He kept rivals bottled up in Jeddah and Miami, incurring penalties for overstepping the mark in both.

Miami was a ruinous weekend for Magnussen’s season as he also collided with Logan Sargeant and left having picked up enough points to move halfway towards a ban. Given his earlier penalty for an unjustifiable collision with Yuki Tsunoda in China, it seemed inevitable Magnussen’s luck would run out eventually, and it did after he clashed with Pierre Gasly in Monza.

Aside from his tendency to get involved in too many incidents, the root cause of Magnussen’s troubles in 2024 was the fact Hulkenberg routinely out-qualified him. That was always going to make life difficult, but after that strong spell at the end of the year he can at least leave F1 with his head held high.

RaceFans’ driver rankings are based partly on the scores awarded to drivers for their performances in each round as well as other factors.

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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7 comments on “2024 Formula 1 driver rankings #14: Kevin Magnussen”

  1. tendency to get involved in too many incidents

    ? I really feel his unwillingness to see the limits of how to behave on track have held him back for the last few years. Sure, his team bosses at Haas seemed to like it, as does a significant part of the fans it seesms.

    To me it was a relief that the even stewards finally felt he overdid it and shied away from finding even more excuses why not to give penalty points to a driver. I can only hope they will not shy away from that in the future (unlike what we saw before in several cases), because not punishing dangerous driving encourages and gives permission for others to do it.

    Yes, Magnussen has shown that he is a really good driver and his first season at McLaren didn’t do him justice. But he has also shown over his career to not be consistently able to get the most out of the car and so far he hasn’t shown he has the awareness to judge what is ok and where his “right” to the road ends.

    1. @bascb I mostly agree. It will be interesting to see what the stewards do when a higher profile and potentially championship contending candidate approaches the points limit. Will they shy away from handing out more points as was the previous precedent, or will they follow through as they did with Magnussen?

      1. I think ‘where the line is’ in on track antics, someone like Max dances along it like it’s a high wire. Most of what he gets up to would split opinion somewhat. Or he at least orchestrates it to never be wholly to blame.

        But Kmag in Miami was just nonsense. I get he was probably trying to keep his drive at the time, but I think he’s lucky it was Lewis (and others) and Lewis was in one of his despondent moods.

        Eddie Irvine got hit by Senna for a much smaller shenanigan.

        1. someone like Max dances along it like it’s a high wire.

          hahaha that is patent non sense

        2. Ben Rowe (@thegianthogweed)
          23rd January 2025, 19:45

          What Magnussen did in Miami in the end got his team points. The team were quite clearly not against Magnussen for driving like he was and even seemed to appreciate his efforts after the race despite his penalties. It can’t be denied that he aided Hulkenberg, and therefore the team by driving like he did.

      2. Personally I get the impression they want to avoid giving out race bans unless they have absolutely no other choice, regardless of who the driver in question is. They certainly don’t want to be in a position where the championship is decided over a race ban for something trivial.

        1. Sadly I have to agree with that notion Craig.

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