Magnussen: The midfield's most underrated driver?
Kevin Magnussen finished 9th in Sochi, bringing home the only points for Haas after Romain Grosjean's 7th race retirement of the season. Does the Dane get enough credit?
Mercedes set things straight at Sochi last weekend, after it looked like Ferrari would have the pace in Russia. Lewis Hamilton won the race with relative comfort from his teammate Valtteri Bottas in second, securing a fourth Mercedes one-two in the tracks short history, and preventing Ferrari from fourth-straight race win with Charles Leclerc completing the podium.
It was a strategic race which saw Sebastian Vettel take the lead from third on the grid. Though it was later revealed that this was part of a premeditated plan from Ferrari chief Mattia Binotto, and Vettel was supposed to hand the lead back to Leclerc soon after to drop Hamilton from second to third. But Vettel pushed on and ignored team instructions to let Leclerc past, before an unfortunate engine failure put the German out of contention.
There were several drivers that impressed on the day. McLaren had a double points finish, and Sergio Perez finished 7th. Though one driver who has, and so often seems to go under appreciated in Formula 1, was Kevin Magnussen. The Haas driver brought home a couple of ever-appreciated points for the American team, racing hard to keep pace with the McLaren of Lando Norris in-front and Nico Hulkenberg in the Renault behind. It takes the Danish driver to 20 points for the season, comfortably ahead of his teammate Romain Grosjean.
Magnussen is in his third season with Haas and his sixth successive in Formula 1. This season may well be his toughest to date, in a Haas car that's fallen down the midfield grouping this year with just 28 points, second lowest only to Williams. Grosjean has picked up just eight points in what’s been a poor season so far for the Frenchman, who many expected to be out of a seat next season.
The Dane has established himself as a reliable driver in an unreliable Haas car. Last season he brought home 56 points to finish 9th in the drivers standings, 19 points ahead of his teammate. Grosjean has struggled for race form in the past two seasons. Since the Australian Grand Prix in 2018, the Frenchman has not finished 12 of 37 races in the Haas, compared to the five that Magnussen hasn’t.
There’s a lot of good drivers in the midfield pack. There’s a lot of experienced drivers with podiums to their names, and the potential to go on and race for title-winning teams in Formula 1. Too few people though have given Kevin Magnussen the praise he deserves in the past two years. Grosjean was once thought of as one of the midfield top drivers, and was briefly linked with a Ferrari seat in 2016. But Magnussen has gone about his business quietly and is starting to prove why he’s Haas’ number one driver.
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Those driver for me is the one i would like too see driving for Ferrari along side of Leclerc he gets streght.
It's time for the team have 2 young with future drivers and release the past, time to Vettel change he is not a winner anymore and don't acept be the nº2 . Change the sports go to endurance