Kevin Magnussen has lashed out at Formula 1’s stewards, urging them to stop “punishing ridiculous things” and calling for a more lenient approach to penalties. The Haas driver’s frustrations come in the wake of his one-race suspension, which sidelined him from the Azerbaijan Grand Prix following a collision with Pierre Gasly at Monza that led to him accruing 12 penalty points in a rolling 12-month period.
Magnussen’s absence in Baku allowed Ferrari junior Oliver Bearman to step in and score a point for Haas, finishing 10th. While the weekend served as a break for Magnussen, he took the time to recharge and refocus on the remaining races of the season. Despite the enforced break, he didn’t let it dampen his spirit, admitting that he spent some of his downtime watching the race with “half an eye” while working out.
“It was a surprise holiday, but I was ready to jump in if the team needed me,” Magnussen shared, emphasizing that he tried to switch off from racing completely during his ban.
Magnussen also denied that the looming threat of a race ban had affected his driving style in the rounds leading up to Monza. “You get punished, and then you come back all fired up,” he joked. “It was annoying to know that any incident could lead to a ban, but I just had to keep pushing.”
He joins a growing chorus of drivers, including his teammate Nico Hulkenberg, who have criticized the current penalty points system as overly harsh. Magnussen, who began his F1 career in 2014, expressed disappointment with the direction the sport has taken, suggesting that the stewards have become too strict in regulating wheel-to-wheel racing.
“I think the sport is overregulated now,” Magnussen said. “We need to get back to what makes racing exciting—hard battles, pushing the limits. Right now, it feels like they’re penalizing things that don’t deserve punishment.”
The Dane is calling on the FIA to rethink its penalty points structure, arguing that race bans should be reserved for “extraordinarily dangerous driving” rather than for accumulating minor infractions over time. He highlighted how the current system can be unfair, especially in cases like his, where points accrued early in the season don’t drop off, leading to harsher penalties.
“It’s a complex issue,” Magnussen admitted. “It doesn’t make sense to get punished harder because of when your points were accumulated. It’s not a fair representation of a driver’s on-track behavior.”
Magnussen’s plea comes at a time when many in the paddock are calling for a return to the aggressive, daring racing that has defined F1 for decades. As the sport continues to grapple with finding the right balance between safety and excitement, the voices of drivers like Magnussen are becoming harder to ignore.
