Kevin Magnussen accepts the penalties for F1 Miami GP sprint, as Lewis Hamilton along with Andrea Stella reflect on the fight.
It was another hectic laps for Haas’ Magnussen where he was defending for his teammate Nico Hulkenberg. Having tucked behind the German after a solid start in F1 Miami GP sprint, the Dane lost touch to him and was left in defence mode.
He had a train of cars behind him being led by Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton. And then started the tactics from Magnussen which he admitted to, even though he didn’t enjoy it, he had to do it. As a consequence, he did earn time penalty worth 35 seconds.
On top of that, he was called in for unsportsmanlike behaviour after his media comments, but was left by the FIA stewards who have asked for rule clarification in this regard. He now has eight penalty points where four more will result in a race ban.
“All the penalties were well deserved,” said Magnussen. “No doubt about it. But I had to play the game again. I was in a very good position behind Nico there. At the beginning of the race I gained a lot positions, was up in P8 and protecting well from Lewis because I had DRS from Nico and had good pace.
“But then Nico cut the chicane and I lost the DRS. Nico could’ve given that back to give me the DRS to protect because then we would’ve easily been P7-P8. Instead, I was really vulnerable to Lewis and we started fighting like crazy. I started using these stupid tactics, which I don’t like doing. But, at the end of the day, I did my job as a team player.
“Nico scored his points because I got that gap for him. Lewis and Tsunoda couldn’t catch him. Not the way I like to go racing, at all, but was what I had to do,” summed up Magnussen, whose honesty was appreciated by Hamilton, but not rival team boss McLaren’s Stella and even Oscar Piastri for that instance.
“I mean, it’s really honest of him,” said Hamilton. “I think it’s pretty cool. We had a good race. It was a little bit on the edge in some places, but that is what I love. I love racing hard. So for me, it wasn’t really frustrating or anything. That is obviously what you do to work as a team. So bravo.”
As for Stella, the Italian reckons Magnussen should get a race ban for his repeated offence not just in Miami but in previous races as well. “For me, it’s actually relatively simple, this case, because 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,” he said.
“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…It is completely unacceptable. It makes no sense from a sportsmanship point of view and this should be addressed immediately.
“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. I don’t think they may have a reason why not. I am sure the FIA will look into that and will come to a sensible proposal for the Sporting Advisory Committee to evaluate.
“Hopefully these will soon become rules or guidelines that the stewards can apply,” summed up Stella, as Piastri added: “There are certain scenarios where giving the position back is very difficult. Say you overtake somebody and the FIA asks you to give it back, but then you’re dropped behind more people… is it still fair or not?
“But 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. If you go off by 10 centimetres and it’s not clear on the TV or you pulled off the world’s best overtake, then are the fans going to say: ‘Oh, this is way too harsh’.
“It’s very difficult to police it like that, but if it’s blatant, then the FIA should have the power to step in. The fact that it’s not the first time and the driver is openly admitting he deserves the penalties and did it for the team, to me that’s wrong. I saw his comments after the race, saying that he deserved to have the all the penalties he got.
“I think the fact that the driver getting the penalties is saying he deserves all the penalties, and that’s kind of the route they chose to go down… it doesn’t set a very good precedent for everyone. I think getting penalties and saying ‘Well, it was a bit 50/50’ or ‘I got hard done by’ is one thing, but getting that many penalties and saying ‘Yeah, I deserve them all’ – I feel like that’s pretty average. It’s just not on. It sets a very risky precedent that I think should probably be policed a bit harsher.”
Here’s what the FIA said: https://www.fia.com/sites/default/files/decision-document/2024%20Miami%20Grand%20Prix%20-%20Decision%20-%20Car%2020%20-%20Alleged%20unsportsmanlike%20behaviour.pdf
Here’s fight between them: https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/video.2024-miami-gp-sprint-magnussen-cuts-the-chicane-as-battle-with-hamilton-hots-up.1798151346863418335.html
Here’s what happened in F1 Miami GP sprint weekend
Here’s link to a F1 Discord channel, join in to interact
