Kevin Magnussen summoned to the stewards in relation to alleged unsportsmanlike behaviour
In an interview he pretty much said that his intention was to stay ahead of the pack at all cost to protect Nico https://piped.video/ivslsT3TjK8
Yeah it was pretty obvious on air as well. I expect some sort of reprimand. This goes against the spirit of the rules.
There were some calls for harsher penalty after his previous attempt at this tactics in Saudia Arabian GP.
Albon said as much as:
“The other one was a bit cheeky, the other 10-second one with Yuki. I mean, you basically guarantee your teammate points for a 10-second penalty. Why wouldn’t you do that everywhere? I don’t think five to 10 seconds is correct. I think it needs to be you must return the position back, and just leave it like that.
“I think any team would do the same thing if you sacrifice one driver for guaranteed points. Maybe the top teams won’t do it. But the midfield teams who need to take points at any opportunity, you would do it every single time.
“I think you might see more drivers doing it just to guarantee a team-mate to have points.”
Yes, this in particular is something they need to bring the hammer down on now before others see this as a valid strategy. After the first 10s penalty he was out of the points and obviously consciously decided that if he was out any way, more penalities wouldn't sting as much as his team bringing home another zero point weekend.
It was egregious and unsportsmanlike. And I say this as someone who generally likes KMag.
I expect some sort of reprimand. This goes against the spirit of the rules.
So do two penalties for one offense. Magnussen already got the 10sec penalties for the individual infractions.
Not sure if I'm being ignorant of something here but Checo basically won Max a championship by holding up Hamilton. Nobody in the garage cared about Checo's race outcome in Abu Dhabi 2021.
If Magnussen can defend fairly who's to judge what his reasons are? Whether he's willingly sacrificing his own pace for the team or whether he's trying to stay ahead for his own sake. The fact is he had to extend the track. I too think that these time penalties make little sense because they don't get Magnussen out of Hamilton's way. I guess once Tsunoda comes into the mix it's hard to make Magnussen give the position to Lewis but I think the reprimands dished out during the race should be more oriented on reducing the disadvantage that the other car has suffered, not just disadvantaging the perpetrator. Especially in the sprint where pitstops aren't to be expected. Hamilton's race is ruined whether Magnussen gets 25 seconds or 5 minutes added to his total at the end.
Not sure if I'm being ignorant of something here but Checo basically won Max a championship by holding up Hamilton. Nobody in the garage cared about Checo's race outcome in Abu Dhabi 2021.
Because checo held up Hamilton with great car placement and not with a 'if you try to overtake me I will crash into you' attitude which magnussen displayed yesterday. Like magnussens defense in jeddah was still fine but yesterday he was way way over the line.
If he is not punished for it, it is a blueprint for teams who will use the slower driver to defend in a overzealous way risking a crash to prevent the guy behind from overtaking
The last sector in that lap of Perez in that race was godly. He sacrificed every bit of pace in those corners to slow Hamilton down and keep him behind.
It's like you said, Magnussen only held Hamilton back by cheating. That's the thing that's different between him and Perez. Additionally, we've seen Magnussen do similarly cheating or grey-area things before when defending - it's kinda what he's known for. There's nothing wrong with playing as a team and ruining your own race and the guy behind you to let your teammate win, but you gotta stay within the rules.
And yeah, I agree that the penalty doesn't fix things for Hamilton but that can often be the case. I think it's too difficult to fix any other way though. Imagine there's a crash which retires the victim's car. You can't give them back their race so all you can do is penalise the other driver
If Magnussen can defend fairly who's to judge what his reasons are?
But he didn't and got penalties to show for it.
Yet some in here are making it sound like defending someone behind to give the teammate in front space is in itself condemnable. That's all I was trying to get at. Magnussen deserved all the penalties he got.