Kevin Magnussen

Born: 5/10/1992 Roskilde, Denmark 

Forming one half of the Haas F1 Team’s ‘Comeback Kings’ driver line-up alongside Nico Hulkenberg for the 2023 season, Kevin Magnussen elongated his F1 career following his eleventh-hour return in 2022. 

A driver that has now twice returned to F1 after a year out – his first enforced sabbatical coming in 2015 and the second in 2021 – Magnussen is aiming to stay around for longer this time.

Son of ex-McLaren and Stewart F1 driver Jan, Kevin Magnussen traced his father’s footsteps through the junior ranks with success at domestic F3 level, including a runner-up spot in the 2011 British F3 Championship.  

However, it was Magnussen’s runaway charge to the 2013 Formula Renault 3.5 Championship title that earned him his F1 chance with McLaren. 

He scored a podium on his F1 debut in Australia, but is yet to return to the rostrum.  

2022 - Haas F1 Team 

13th - 25 points 

With little interest from F1 teams set to leave him on the sidelines again for 2021, Magnussen’s hopes of a return to F1 appeared over ahead of the 2022 F1 season. After a season with Chip Ganassi Racing in the IMSA sportscar series, he signed for Peugeot’s World Endurance Championship campaign.

However, when Haas dropped Nikita Mazepin from its driver line-up a week before the start of the testing – due to sanctions levied on sponsor Uralkali, the team’s primary backer – in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Magnussen received an eleventh-hour call up. 

Rejoining the team one day before pre-season testing got underway, Magnussen shone in the well-judged and competitive VF-22 early on.

Announcing his return with a superb run to fifth in the Bahrain opener, Magnussen scored in three of the opening four races. The results tailed off as the season progressed though, as Haas’ rivals caught it in the development race.   

His season, and arguably career, highlight came at the 2022 Brazilian Grand Prix, when he scored both his and the Haas team’s first pole position. He’d go on to finish eight in the sprint race, followed by a race-ending first-lap collision in the main event.

Despite this he was still able to out-score team-mate Mick Schumacher, earning him another season in the team for 2023. 

2020 - Haas F1 Team 

20th - 1 point 

Haas’ slide down the order continued in 2020, the team suffering in parallel with engine partner Ferrari after it was forced to make changes to its power unit in response to a breach in regulation. 

Breaking into the points just once all year, Magnussen ended the season with a single point to his name, achieved in Hungary. It led to him being axed by the team at the end of the 2020 F1 season, leaving him without a seat for 2021, when he embarked on a sportscar career in America.

2019 - Haas F1 Team 

16th - 20 points 

Despite showing strong form in pre-season testing, the Haas VF-19 struggled with various issues over the course of the season as the American team went the wrong way on development. 

Other than a sixth-place finish in Bahrain, points were hard to come by for the Dane, with just four top ten results to his name come the season’s end. 

2018 - Haas F1 Team 

9th - 56 points 

With Haas leveraging its relationship with Ferrari – from whom it sourced various components – more effectively in 2018, Magnussen benefited from a significant step in competitiveness from the VF-18. 

Though a top-four finish in the Australian opener was scuppered by a pitstop issue, Magnussen became a regular scorer over the course of the year.  

He equalled Haas’ best result of fifth place in Bahrain and then again in Austria, with 11 trips to the top ten earning him career-best ninth in the overall standings. 

2017 - Haas F1 Team 

14th - 19 points 

Magnussen joined Haas for its second season in F1 and enjoyed positive results initially, including a run to eighth during the second round in China and a tenth place on the streets of Monaco.  

A best finish of seventh followed in Azerbaijan – having run as high as third at one stage – helping him to 14th in the overall standings. 

2016 - Renault Sport F1 Team 

16th - 7 points 

With no available seats on the 2016 F1 grid, Magnussen was close to penning a deal to race with Porsche in the World Endurance Championship before he received a late call-up to replace Pastor Maldonado at Renault after he was dropped over a contract dispute.  

Renault’s first season back in the series as a fully-fledged manufacturer following its takeover of Lotus, the late deal meant the R.S.16 – developed from a Mercedes-engined Lotus’ prototype – struggled for form all year.  

With the team rooted in the bottom quarter throughout, Magnussen could only break into the points twice – a seventh place in Sochi and a tenth place in Singapore. A huge crash in the Belgian GP at Spa, from which he escaped with minor injuries, cost him another likely points finish.

2014 - McLaren Mercedes 

11th - 55 points 

Already a member of the McLaren Young Driver programme, Magnussen was selected over Sergio Perez to herald a new era for both the team and the sport in anticipation of the V6 hybrid turbo era.

Following a modest 2013 campaign for the team, Magnussen was front and centre of McLaren’s scintillating start to the season with his run to third place, which was later upgraded to second when Daniel Ricciardo was disqualified ahead of him. 

However, the result – made possible primarily by its potent Mercedes power unit, by far the fastest and most reliable option at the time – flattered to deceive and Magnussen failed to get close to the top three again over the season, cracking the top five just once more in Russia. 

Pitched into direct competition with Jenson Button for the 2015 McLaren F1 drive following Fernando Alonso’s surprise appointment, Magnussen lost out and instead reverted to a test driver role for 2015. 

He went on to make one more race appearance for McLaren in 2015, at the season-opening Australian Grand Prix in place of the injured Alonso, but amid dire reliability issues with the car’s new Honda power unit, a pre-race failure prevented him from starting.