Magnussen filled the team player role again, but rivals were not happy…
Alex Albon and Pierre Gasly have criticised Kevin Magnussen’s defensive driving as the Dane tried to help his Haas team mate Nico Hulkenberg in the Dutch GP.
Albon noted that there is not enough policing by the FIA when teams adopt “sacrificial lamb” tactics and use one driver to protect the other.
Magnussen started from the pitlane in Zandvoort, and drove a long opening stint on the hard tyre.
In the middle of the race he was running in 10th place behind Hulkenberg, but unlike the German he was still due a pit stop, and was thus set to drop back.
When Albon closed up Magnussen successfully held him back for a couple of laps, with the Williams driving branding the situation “dangerous” on team radio.
Gasly and Aston Martin team mates Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll were able catch Albon, and eventually all four dived past the Haas driver at the same time. Magnussen pitted immediately afterwards.
His efforts to help Hulkenberg proved in vain as Gasly and Alonso bumped the German down to 11th and out of the points.
Albon, who was held up by Magnussen in similar circumstances at the Saudi Arabian GP, made his frustration clear.
“It stems from, a little bit like Jeddah, playing the team game,” said Albon when asked about Magnussen by this writer.
“Kevin’s an unbelievable team player, and I give him full credit for it. I don’t think it gets policed that well, and there’s a bit of a grey area between what is correct in backing up a group of cars. In this case, for me, it was fairly marginal.
“There’s some really quick corners, Turn 7, Turn 8, the final corner, and he was braking in the middle of them. So you turn in flat, and then you have to stand on the brakes and avoid it. That’s I think, crossing the line a little bit. But it’s grey.
“And part of the issue is it’s not really being policed that often. And I had the same situation in Monaco with Yuki during the race, and I was complaining. But they felt it was okay. The problem is, at one point, there’s going to be a crash.”
Albon stressed how tight the battle for the final points positions now is.
“I said it before, but it all just stems from the lower field teams, we’re fighting for a point that P10, P9 is so valuable to us, and obviously now McLaren is up in the top end. It’s very normal.
“Every team does it now. There’s a lot of kind of one seat, one driver has to play the sacrificial lamb in the in the race, and that’s what a lot of the racing has come to now.
“Obviously, if the point system was a bit different and there’s a bit more range, I don’t think this kind of stuff would happen. But that’s the game.”
Gasly, who took advantage of the situation to dive past Albon and claim what turned into ninth place,
“I’ve never seen someone lifting in Turn 14, or putting first gear in Turn 12,” said the Frenchman. “I think Alex got very close to him. He locked up mid-corner Turn 12, when K-MAG was downshifting in first, when you should be almost full throttle.
“And then in 14, I opened the DRS, and all of a sudden, I don’t know what he was doing on the inside.
“It was quite clear what he was trying to do for Nico. In the end, I managed to get out on top of that group. At the time, I think my heartbeat was quite high, but I’m happy I managed to get out of there leading the pack.”
Adam Cooper F1 