07/05/2025 07:25
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."
