McLaren Formula 1 team boss Andrea Stella says that Kevin Magnussen’s blocking tactics in the Miami GP sprint race were “completely unacceptable.”
Magnussen picked up a string of penalties for going off track while trying to keep Lewis Hamilton behind. In so doing he prevented the Mercedes driver from attacking the other Haas of Nico Hulkenberg up ahead.
Hulkenberg eventually finished seventh, and while Hamilton was eighth on the road he lost his point for a pit speeding offence. Magnussen’s penalties dropped the Dane to 18th. He was also subject to an unsportsmanlike behaviour investigation.
Although the tactics made no difference to the races of his own drivers Stella questioned Magnussen’s sportsmanship and suggested that penalty in such a case should see the driver banned for the race.
“For me, it’s actually relatively simple this case, because we have a case of a behaviour being intentional in terms of damaging another competitor,” he said.
“This behaviour is perpetuated within the same race, and repeated over the same season. How can penalties be cumulative? They should be exponential. It’s not five plus five plus five equals 15.
“Five plus five plus five equals maybe you need to spend a weekend at home with your family, reflect on your sportsmanship, and then go back. And if we see that you’ve become loyal, fair, and sportmanslike to your fellow competitors, then you can stay in this business. It’s completely unacceptable.”
In addition to four time penalties Magnussen picked up three penalty points, taking his running total to eight.
“I guess the penalty points are still is in place,” said Stella. “So I don’t know exactly the situation for some drivers, I have to confess. But definitely it may mean that the metrics might have to be adjusted, damaging intentionally the race of competitors just makes no sense from sportsmanship point of view. And this should be addressed immediately.
“Because if you are out of the points, you get 20 seconds or whatever, at the end of your race, it doesn’t make any difference. But for the competitors you have damaged, you have put them out of their race, again, in a deliberate, perpetuated and repeated way. This is completely unacceptable.”
Asked about the reaction of the FIA stewards he added: “I think they just potentially they were surprised themselves from the fact that this was repeated. And I’m sure they are going to look into that. And by offering a strong opinion, I think I want to reiterate that these values of being fair, it’s a sport, it’s a competition, we need to give everyone a fair chance to compete.
“These values need to be taken into account in creating the appropriate set of regulations. But I’m sure the FIA will look into that. And we’ll come with sensible proposal for the sporting advisory committee to evaluate, and hopefully this will become soon either rules or guidelines that the stewards can apply.”
Adam Cooper F1 