At the end of the 2020 season, Kevin Magnussen wrapped up his F1 career. Haas F1 had moved on to paying driver Nikita Mazepin, ending a four-year relationship that once saw Magnussen finish as high as tenth in the program's better days. Mazepin then went on to score 0 career points, finish 21st in a 20-driver championship, and find his family caught up in the politics of an actual war. Magnussen went on to make a tough IndyCar debut and win IMSA races for Cadillac's factory Chip Ganassi Racing program ahead of a planned 2022 World Endurance Championship effort with Peugeot. Then, he got an unexpected call.
Our 20-part, driver-by-driver preview of the Formula 1 grid wrapped up last weekend. However, a late driver change left that grid with an addition just one week before the season began. This one-off covers only Kevin Magnussen. You can find the rest of our previews here.
With Nikita Mazepin suddenly out of Formula 1, Haas looked past an exciting list of F1 prospects to bring back a steady hand the team already trusted. They chose Magnussen, signing him to what is said to be a multi-year deal to guarantee he came back to their fold. Now, with a car in development all last season and a veteran driver, Haas can start looking up for the first time in years.
HOW HE GOT HERE
Years before any of this, Kevin Magnussen was the future at McLaren. A 2013 Formula Renault 3.5 title earned him Sergio Perez's car in the 2014 season. Unfortunately, both he and Perez (and, years later, Stoffel Vandoorne) found themselves at a struggling McLaren wholly unequipped to help a young driver develop alongside the team. He was dropped within a year for Fernando Alonso and spent 2015 as a reserve driver.
2016 took him to Renault, where he comfortably outdueled Joylon Palmer at another storied team at an all-time low. He scored points twice, but his decision to move to Haas in 2017 actually looked at the time like something of a move up the grid. That was the first of a four-year internal rivalry with Romain Grosjean, a similar talent with a very different background and driving style. While Grosjean beat him in the standings in 2017 and 2020, he reached the team's all-time high for a driver when he finished 9th in 2018.
That pair was finally broken up after a disastrous 2020 season turned into an even more disastrous 2021 for Haas. Grosjean went to IndyCar, where a promising season in a Dale Coyne Racing car earned him a promotion to Andretti Autosport and an expected shot at a championship. Magnussen looked to sports cars, first signing with Cadillac's IMSA program and later agreeing to a future deal to lead Peugeot's World Endurance Championship team.
HOW 2021 WENT
In by far the most unique 2021 season of anyone on the 2022 F1 grid, Magnussen recorded one IMSA win in nine races alongside Renger van der Zande. With the Peugeot program still delayed by vague testing and manufacturing issues, he also ran with Chip Ganassi Racing's Cadillac program at Daytona this year.
Like Grosjean, Magnussen had also begun to dip his toes into the world of IndyCar. He actually raced for McLaren, of all teams, when he replaced an injured Felix Rosenqvist at the company's Arrow McLaren SP team for one race at Road America. He struggled in qualifying and the race, but it was far from unexpected for a driver jumping into the notoriously difficult-to-handle Dallara chassis with no prior testing. Magnussen also tested an IndyCar this offseason ahead of what could have been a few one-offs this season.
Both sports cars and IndyCar could be waiting for him again later in his career, but, for now, Magnussen's focus is back where it started. He was signed earlier this week, but he's already tested the car and already led a session of testing for Haas.
GOALS FOR 2022
Magnussen has already won. By being the first choice Haas had for a steady hand, he's proven that teams still respect his talent and are still looking to him as a solution in their times of need. If he wants to be more than that, there's an outside chance this year's Haas entry might be good enough for him to prove it.
The 2022 Haas has been the team's development focus since the 2021 offseason, when the program decided to punt on a disastrous 2020 chassis entirely. The immediate result was an even worse 2021, one where they were the only team in a league of their own on pace in a bad way, but it may actually pay dividends this year. Testing times mean little to nothing, but the impressive laps put down by the Haas this year show that it is at least in the range of competitive cars this year. That alone is a major improvement, and enough for Magnussen to easily outshine what Mazepin did in his one season in F1.
A SUCCESSFUL SEASON LOOKS LIKE...
Does that mean Haas is going to jump straight from a zero-point season to winning races? Not likely, but a modest move up the grid could get the team back firmly in the mid-pack where it was once a fixture. This is still a young team, but Magnussen and team principal Guenther Steiner give it a surprising amount of continuity that other teams in their range lack.
Steady hands are the name of the game. He may not be an ambitious hire, but, for a team looking to dig itself out of a series-worst hole, Magnussen is the right guy. He has already taken Haas F1 to a respectable place for their budget and he can absolutely do so again.
