Kevin Magnussen recalls 'crazy and disrespectful' Lewis Hamilton demand at McLaren

07/05/2025 01:25

Kevin Magnussen has reflected on the extreme expectations placed on him by McLaren during his rookie season in F1. The Danish driver raced alongside Jenson Button for the Woking squad in 2014, before being sidelined for Fernando Alonso for the following campaign. Initially planning to have the one-time podium finisher partner the Spaniard in 2015 , McLaren heaped a huge demand on his young shoulders. In short, the team wanted him to replicate the performance advantage Lewis Hamilton had enjoyed over Jenson Button in qualifying between 2010 and 2012. Now 32 years of age, Magnussen can recognised how "unfair" that was on him, not to mention disdainful towards the 2009 F1 drivers' champion. "I remember Jonathan [Neale, managing director] and Éric [Boullier, racing director] telling me: 'Lewis was an average of 0.15sec faster than Jenson in qualifying over the three years they raced alongside each other, so, to retain your drive for next year, you should be aiming to beat Jenson by the same margin'," Magnussen told Motor Sport Magazine . "I accepted it at the time but, looking back, it was unfair. "Lewis and Jenson were both F1 world champions, far more experienced than I was, and Jonathan and Éric were telling me that if I wasn't as good in my rookie season as Lewis had been in his third, fourth and fifth F1 seasons, I'd be out. "That was crazy – and also disrespectful to Jenson." Opposite of what Magnussen needed Looking back, Magnussen can identify how and why he would have handled the situation differently if afforded a do-over, but can nonetheless appreciate the precarious position he was in. "Now I wish I'd stood up for myself," the former Renault and Haas driver said. "I was naïve. But, in my defence, I was an F1 new boy." Magnussen can recognise how if affected him, with it catalysing a self-perpetuating cycle where he was doomed to make errors, when what he needed was support. "Inevitably, that unfair weight of expectation heaped unnecessary pressure on me, and I began to make mistakes," he said. "It was a ridiculous set of expectations to push onto a 21-year-old rookie. I had the talent, I had the speed, but I needed support mentally and emotionally, and the senior McLaren management on the racing side offered the opposite."