His one-year break from Formula 1 was important, says Haas driver Kevin Magnussen, because it changed his view of the sport and his appreciation of it
Kevin Magnussen’s Formula 1 career got off to a promising start. In his very first race at the 2014 Australian Grand Prix, the Dane finished second on the podium in a McLaren-Mercedes. However, he has not been able to repeat this success to date. It remained his only podium
McLaren replaced him with Fernando Alonso after just one season. Magnussen initially remained a test driver, then switched to Renault and finally to Haas. With inferior material, however, there was not much to gain for the now 31-year-old.
He only managed to finish in the points sporadically and lost his cockpit to a rookie at the end of 2020. Then came the unexpected comeback in 2022: Haas parted ways with Nikita Masepin due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and brought Magnussen back.
Looking back, the Dane admits: “I think I may have lost a bit of my love for Formula 1 in the years before my return. It’s like that: You go through the junior categories, that’s one thing, and then when you get into Formula 1, that’s something completely different.”
“Of course, there are people who come into Formula 1 after their junior career and are immediately successful there. But I had many years … well, there were six seasons or so before this break where I didn’t win at all.”
“So I think I just got a bit disenchanted with Formula 1. And then I had a year off, missed it and came back. And I had a new kind of appreciation for it.” A certain distance and a new perspective on the sport also helped the Haas driver
“After I retired from the sport – not completely, I was still racing, but in sports cars, so I was completely out of Formula 1 for a while and could look at it from the outside, think about it from the outside,” explains Magnussen. “And then I got back into it. “
