Kevin Magnussen says Formula 1 race control should reinstate the practice of telling drivers to return places to rivals if they gain them illegally.
The current practice in Formula 1 is for any driver who gains or maintains a position over a rival by running outside track limits to cede the position or risk a penalty.
Race control’s approach to such incident changed when former FIA F1 race director Michael Masi was replaced at the end of 2021. Current race director Niels Wittich made several changes to how the racing rules were applied, including telling teams race control would no longer inform if drivers should hand back positions to rivals.
Magnussen has accumulated a total of 10 penalty points on his super licence over the opening six rounds. Three of which came after the sprint race in Miami, where he was deemed to have left the track and gained an advantage several times in his efforts to keep Lewis Hamiltonand other rivals behind him.
Speaking ahead of this weekend’s Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix at Imola, Magnussen questioned whether race control should reclaim the initiative to compel drivers to move aside for rivals when they breach the regulations.
“I think the best thing would be for the FIA to tell us to give back positions and then the consequence for not doing that being harsh – like really harsh – so you make sure that that’s being done,” he said in yesterday’s FIA press conference.
“I think it gets, firstly, too complicated and also too big a consequence. You have to be able to leave a little bit of room to go over the limit and then come back from that.”
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After some drivers complained last year the penalties for such infringements were too lenient, tougher sanctions were introduced this year, including a move from five to 10-second time penalties. Even stronger penalties have been considered, which Magnussen is against.
“Now, if they judge it to be an unfair advantage and it’s a drive-through penalty, I think that’s not good,” he said.
Magnussen spent a year out of Formula 1 in 2021, during which several controversies occured surrounding drivers being told to give places back. He competed in the IMSA sportscar series, racing a Daytona Prototype for Chip Ganassi, as well as a one-off IndyCar appearance for McLaren at Road America.
He believes F1 could learn lessons from American motorsport. “I’ve raced in IndyCar, and I love the way they race over there,” he said.
“I feel the rules are very clear and very simple, and the racing is great. The racing has to be great amongst the 20 best drivers in the world. I think that is also part of it.
“One thing is that the Formula 1 drivers are fast, but also very good at racing. You have to showcase that. That has to be part of it. We all came from karting and learned to race each other. And I feel now, certainly for myself, with the guidelines this year, some of that is going against the natural racing dynamic that we’ve all learned as young kids.
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“But I know that’s a separate issue to the going off and holding people back and all the stuff that I got penalties for, I think that can be solved with telling us to give back positions. And the penalty for not doing that would be very, very harsh.”
Magnussen also believes that Formula 1 is overly-sensitive to any imperfections with track layout and surface, compared to the tracks he raced on during his year in North America.
“I think that’s a big part too,” he said. “One thing that stood out was the tracks and how unbelievably different they are to F1 tracks. The cars over there, they are low as well. We bounce around in the sports cars over there.
“I’m sitting next to a lot of drivers here, but I feel like we are very sensitive to track stuff in Formula 1. I like the rough tracks. I prefer those, but also to the racing issue, tracks that have grass or gravel on the outside, you just put this natural limit in and it sorts itself out. So I feel like that is also an issue in Formula 1, just the tracks in general.”
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