The joy that exposes F1’s key weakness

Long-awaited wins for ex-Formula 1 drivers Marcus Ericsson and Kevin Magnussen in IndyCar and IMSA last weekend gave F1 a reminder of what it is missing. But with the new rules aimed at levelling the playing field, there’s renewed optimism that more drivers can have a rewarding result when their day of days comes

Jonathan Noble Jun 17, 2021, 8:43 AM

Upd: Jun 17, 2021, 3:18 PM

It's been good to see the smile back on the faces of some former Formula 1 drivers this year.

Marcus Ericsson's maiden IndyCar victory and Kevin Magnussen's first IMSA Sportscar Championship success in Detroit last weekend, a few weeks after Romain Grosjean captured his first IndyCar pole position in the Indy GP, showed just how much they had forgotten what it felt like to be on top. As Grosjean remarked recently about seeing his name against P1 after so long not being mired in F1's midfield, "it's like being alive again."

In fact, you have to go back quite a way to find the last time any of them achieved such a feat. Prior to last weekend, Ericsson's most recent victory was at the Nurburgring in GP2 in 2013, while his Chip Ganassi Racing stablemate Magnussen's last triumph was in the same year in the season finale of the Formula Renault 3.5 Series at Barcelona.

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Author Jonathan Noble

Jonathan Noble is Motorsport.com’s Formula 1 editor. Having graduated from University of Sussex Jonathan worked for sports news agency Collings Sports reporting on F1, F3, touring cars and other sports, with articles appearing in The Daily Telegraph, The Independent, Reuters, Autosport and other publications. In 1999 he moved to Haymarket Publishing to become a senior editor at Autosport Special Projects, and one year later he became Autosport’s grand prix editor. In 2015 he moved to Motorsport Network, becoming the F1 editor for Motorsport.com. He is also a member of the Guild of Motoring Writers, and sits on the FIA Media Council.

Jonathan has won multiple awards for journalism - in 1991 he was the winner of the Guild of Motoring Writers’ Sir William Lyons’ Award for young journalists, in 2010 he was awarded the Outstanding Individual accolade for consumer journalism in the Haymarket wards, in 2011 he won Haymarket’s Scoop of the Year, and in 2018 he was awarded a prestigious Medaglia d’Oro at the Lorenzo Bandini Awards for his contribution to F1 journalism.