The Magnussen case
The race Miami Grand Prix Sprint has generated numerous controversies for what happened between Lewis Hamilton and Kevin Magnussen. The Haas Dane, to defend his position from the attacks of the seven-time world champion, resorted to various incorrect maneuvers to allow his teammate Nico Hülkenberg to maintain seventh place, replicating in some way what he had already done in Saudi Arabia. Analyzing what was done on several occasions, the Race Direction imposed four time penalties to Danish, for a total of well 35 seconds to serve at the end of the race. Despite this, the FIA did not apply a fifth penalty for ‘unsporting behaviour’, as stated in the Federation’s press release.
Stella doesn’t fit
After the checkered flag, Magnussen also criticized his teammate for not granting him DRS after the early stages of the Sprint, thus forcing him to defend himself from Hamilton by ‘resorting to stupid tactics to help him’. For these reasons, the Dane’s conduct was not tolerated by drivers and team principals alike Andrea Stellahead of McLaren.
Straight to disqualification
The Umbrian engineer did not at all like not only what happened on the track, but also the type of penalties inflicted by the race commissioners. In a meeting with the media, Stella indicated that he would accept not the accumulation of seconds to serve, but directly the disqualification for one race: “For me this case is relatively simple – has explained – because we have a case of intentional behavior to the detriment of another competitor, which is perpetuated within the same competition and repeated throughout the same season. How can sanctions be cumulative? Perhaps you need to spend a weekend at home with family to reflect on their sportsmanship and then go back. If we see that you become loyal, correct and sportsmanlike towards your teammates, then you can stay in this sector. It is absolutely unacceptable“.
More points on the Super License
Beyond six seconds to serve, Magnussen now finds himself with 8 penalty points on the Super License out of the 12 maximums granted in a year. Once this quota has been reached in this period of time, the driver is suspended from a race by regulation, but even here Stella does not agree with the rule, believing that the penalty points should be more severe in the face of certain misconduct: “The evaluation criteria need to be changed – he continued – intentionally damaging your opponents’ competition makes no sense from a sportsmanship perspective. This issue should be addressed immediately, because if you’re out of the points and get 20 seconds or whatever at the end of your race, it doesn’t make any difference. But for the competitors you harmed, you put them out of the running – once again – in a deliberate, perpetuated, and repeated way. It is absolutely unacceptable. I expect the FIA to make a reasonable proposal for consideration by the Sports Advisory Committee, and hopefully this will happen soon through rules or guidelines that stewards can apply.”
