Getting a second chance at a Formula 1 career after falling off the grid is a rarity. But when Kevin Magnussen was called back onto the grid by Haas for the start of the 2022 season, he did more than enough to convince his team that they had made the right call in signing him to a multi-year deal.
In 2023, however, Magnussen was rarely impressive, never outstanding and often invisible during grand prix weekends.
Driving for the team that ultimately finished last in the championship, it would not have been fair to expect heroics from Magnussen such as those he pulled off in the first half of 2022. But when Magnussen hangs up his helmet and looks back on his career in Formula 1, what will be the highlights from this season that he will remember most fondly?
After returning to the grid, Magnussen effectively ended the F1 career of young Mick Schumacher by thoroughly and consistently out-performing the second-year driver despite having missed a full season. But in 2023, it was Magnussen’s turn to be upstaged by a team mate who had been off the grid for even longer than he had. Nico Hulkenberg won the battle between the two Haas team mates over the year convincingly – a fight that Magnussen surely would have expected to have come out on top in heading into the season.
The season began on an uninspiring note when he was knocked out of Q1 in Bahrain in the first qualifying session of the season after being compromised by Sergio Perez on his final push lap. He made it through into Q2 the next round in Jeddah, before driving a solid race and poaching the final point from Yuki Tsunoda in the closing laps to secure a very satisfying top 10 finish. Sadly for Magnussen, he would only finish as high as that twice more over the remaining 20 rounds.
Australia was the first of a handful of truly bad weekends for Magnussen. He was slower than Hulkenberg across the weekend, failed to follow Hulkenberg into Q3 with a mistake on his final push lap in qualifying and then retired from the race in bizarre fashion by appearing to just drive into the wall. He managed to snag his second point of the season in Miami after holding his own against Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari for multiple laps, showing that he still knows how to race well, but soon a fundamental problem with the Haas began to emerge.
Kevin Magnussen
| Best | Worst | |
|---|---|---|
| GP start | 4 | 20 |
| GP finish | 10 (x3) | 20 |
| Points | 3 | |
The VF-23 suffered throughout the season with tyre degradation compared its rivals, leaving both Magnussen and Hulkenberg…
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