Was the penalty that handed Magnussen a race ban too harsh?
Magnussen is the first driver to be banned for 12 years
Kevin Magnussen can be forgiven for feeling aggrieved by the manner in which he received a one-race ban at the Italian Grand Prix, following his minor incident with Pierre Gasly at the Variante della Roggia.
In attempting to put a move on Gasly at the Turn 4-5 chicane, the Dane locked up and made wheel-to-wheel contact with the Alpine; Gasly took to the run-off to evade heavier contact in the fight over 14th place.
For this, Magnussen was not only hit with a 10-second penalty, but also the critical two points to his superlicence that took his tally up to 12 – immediately pinging him for a race ban at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
This is not a takedown of Formula 1’s current driver penalty system. The 12-superlicence-points-for-a-ban solution has its foibles, sure, but it’s a good way of punishing consistent dangerous driving. Points are, generally speaking, rarely given out for misdemeanours – only for clashes and repeated infractions.
However, the way that the rules are applied depends on the stewards present – and that’s what could be construed as inconsistency. Precedent is often used, but equating Magnussen’s incident to other examples suggests that it is minor by comparison.
By comparison, Nico Hulkenberg picked up the same penalty – 10 seconds plus two penalty points – for his slide tackle on Yuki Tsunoda at Turn 1 earlier in the race. Magnussen himself got the two points for taking Logan Sargeant out in Miami.
These are incidents that not only show a breach of the FIA’s criterion that the overtaking car should “be driven in a safe and controlled manner throughout the manoeuvre”, but also have the net result of taking another driver out of the race.
Magnussen had locked up in the Gasly incident, so that might satisfy the first point – but even without that, there was room on the inside of the corner that he was entitled to as he was sufficiently alongside in the braking zone.
Thus, Magnussen was baffled by the decision, noting the Hulkenberg incident with Daniel Ricciardo earlier in the race – where the RB driver pushed Hulkenberg onto the grass into the Ascari braking zone.
“I don’t understand it at all. You know, flat out, just completely confused. Me and Gasly raced hard into Turn 4. Before, we had slight contact, we both missed the corner, came back on track again, no damage to either car, no consequence to the race of either of us, and I get a 10-second penalty,” Magnussen said.
“But lap 1, Ricciardo put Nico in the grass at 300 kilometres an hour, completely destroyed Nico’s race, massive consequence and damage to Nico’s car, and he gets a five-second penalty. Where’s the logic? I just don’t get it.”
Enter into the conversation that Sergio Perez shoving George Russell wide into Turn 1 at a similar speed was not punished, presumably because Russell made the corner and the overtake…
And Gasly, for his part, didn’t feel that it was worth the penalty either. “Honestly, this was nothing,” he said.
“Someone told me he got a 10-second penalty. I’m a bit surprised by that because he tried, but it was a bit of wheel to wheel and in the end, I really didn’t lose any time. I’m a bit surprised.
“I hope somehow they can revert on that because that would be definitely unfair. I’ll be happy to do it [vouch for Magnussen with the stewards] – I’ll see what I can do. That will feel very unfair for the incident that it was.”
There’s no provision for a driver to reach 12 penalty points and not get a ban – and nor should there be, lest any further concerns over consistency be realised. All drivers should be at risk of hitting the tally and triggering a ban without any chance of delaying, or talking themselves out of the penalty.
But it’s nonetheless surprising that such a minor incident should be the one that pushes Magnussen onto the bench for Baku, as it felt like a somewhat ordinary touch with no lasting repercussions.
However, the stewards try not to look at outcome. Contact at a slightly different angle could have created a more obvious aftermath; the same inputs would have had a different output. The question is not “did that driver create a massive shunt?”, but rather “did the driver lose control of their car and make contact?”
And that’s where the crux of the matter is. One could argue that Magnussen largely made the corner, that Gasly could have given him more room, that the track surface off-line was less grippy…there are a multitude of extenuating factors that might make it more of a grey area. It was, to use footballing parlance, not a clear and obvious error with that context applied.
On another day, it might have been declared a racing incident. That’s the bit that will stick in Magnussen’s craw – but he at least gets his licence scrubbed of all 12 points on his Singapore return.
