Magnussen ‘didn’t achieve our goals’ – Dennis

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In the round-up: McLaren chief Ron Dennis says Kevin Magnussen lost his place at the team because he didn’t perform at the required level.

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Stoffel Vandoorne – McLaren’s next rookie?
He’s just won GP2 and headed the final F1 test of 2015 – but perhaps it wouldn’t be worth putting Stoffel Vandoorne in a grand prix car just yet:

I honestly don’t think throwing Vandoorne into a team striving to regain it’s status as a top team is a good idea.

What are we basing this supposed decline of Button and Alonso on exactly? Prior to 2015, Alonso and Button were both frequently challenging for the top half of the points (and in Alonso’s case, sometimes wins) against some of the sports best. Even in their current situations, where it’s difficult to judge driver performance based on such a poor care, I’ve yet too see anything that indicates that either are on a steep decline. If the McLaren-Honda project had been a success (and it could still be), would throwing into a championship fight be the best idea? When you consider that all champions on the current grid bar Hamilton started off at smaller/backmarker teams it makes little sense to throw him into the deep end, especially when GP2 success is never a guarantee of F1 success.

I agree McLaren should certainly have done more to help him get a seat at another team but if McLaren won’t to go back to being one of the top teams in F1, taking huge risks on unproven F1 talent isn’t the best solution. When two world champions, who have driven some of the best cars in the sport, are available then it’s a no-brainer you take them.
@Davef1

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66 comments on “Magnussen ‘didn’t achieve our goals’ – Dennis”

  1. As inspiring as Magnussen was from time to time, he was totally destroyed by Button. I think it was 3 out of 20 races that he finished in front of Button, and in those Button had problems (except for the first one).

    I wish him all the best though. Button is a great adversary, specially if you believe their car that year was tailor made for him. But I like him more than I like all the pay drivers in F1 these days. I’d rather see 10 Magnussens than 1 Ericsson or 1 Stevens.

    1. On pure pace Kevin was a pretty good match… If not a bit faster than Button (As you see from qualifying results), In the races his biggest problem was said to be that he struggled to figure out how manage the fuel & tyres… Something Jenson is particularly good at.
      Its also worth remembering that Kevin had the 2 penalty’s at Spa & Monza (Which at the time many on here felt were harsh), Both races where he was ahead of Jenson on track.

      I think the biggest shame with Kevin is that we will now not see how much of an improvement he may have been able to make with a season under his belt. The more experience you gain the better your going to be & sadly this year Kevin has not been able to build on what he learned in his 1st season & his career has possibly been set back a bit because he’s been sitting around neither racing or driving this year.

      1. So I went to search for Q head to head and Button won 10-9 vs Mag. Anyway, what I remember is that Button was getting stronger as the season progress and then Mag stuck at 9 wins in Q and Button constantly beating him at the end of the season which ended with 10-9 in Q. You would’ve thought that the greener driver would have better result as the season progress, but it was Button who actually improved by the end of the season.

        1. I think that part of the reason to, why Magnussen didn’t perform that well at the end of the season was, that he was under an enourmous pressure because he already mid-season knew that the team was negotiating with Alonso.
          Ron Dennis has always been a major d-bag and this new statement from him just adds to proove it. He has several problems. A lousy car, 2 champions that demand competitive equipment, sponsors fleeing the sinking ship and so on. And what does he do? He takes it out on a rookie, that was already struggeling with getting a foothold in F1, because he didn’t bring a great amount or money to the table. He only brought raw talent.

          1. You hit the nail on the head Rygiel. You bring in a rookie, he scores a podium in his first race, which is a big teams best result in years now and starts the season off by generally out-qualifying a WC. Mid season rumours about another former WC start and the battle in suddenly on between Magnussen and Button for the second seat. Now who will tackle the pressure better, the rookie or the guy who has 12 seasons of experience??!!

            Magnussen did a great job, and he did show how fast he really is. He is a future WC and I really hope he get’s the Manor seat and get’s the opportunity to shine and maybe even overtake Alonso and Button in the McLarens…

    2. I think to get a clear image of a drivers performance you need at least two seasons, unless it is very clear he fits in F1 like Sainz or Verstappen, or very clear he does not like Guttierez and Ericcson.

    3. petebaldwin (@)
      2nd December 2015, 15:49

      Well if McLaren are getting rid of people who haven’t hit their targets, does that mean they’ll be sacking their entire workforce and ending their contract with Honda?

      I thought Magnussen did a decent job considering he was given only one season. Young drivers need more than 1 season – look as Grosjean if you need any evidence of this.

  2. What was these goals. I think nothing…

    1. I think gering sponsors…

      1. ColdFly F1 (@)
        2nd December 2015, 6:37

        McLaren should hire Maldonando – he’s a champion at that ;-)

        1. @coldfly what about Perez…..oh wait.

    2. Yes (@come-on-kubica)
      2nd December 2015, 12:48

      Probably winning the title.

  3. Well nobody’s got more experience of not achieving performance goals than McLaren and Ron, so they should know…

    What is it, 16 years with only a single title win, and that wasn’t even the constructors one. Despite having Adrian Newey, Paddy Lowe, Kimi, Montoya, Alonso (twice), Hamilton and Button on the books.

    1. :D Well cannot fire entire team.. so they sack the driver…

      With Jenson and Alonso they hardly can complain about driver talent… KMag delivered sparkling first race and went down from there. Kind of like McLaren car of 2014. Imagine poor results KMag would have this year…. oh wait he did :D(Before anyone says… not his fault at all for this year)

      If he was in Toro Rosso he would still be racing for atleast another season to establish well.

      Red Bull handles newbies well. 2-3 seasons and they are usually good and if they are not.. new ones in.

      If Verstappen and Seinz have two more seasons like this… what happens then? Will they promote them and kick out top drvers?

      KMag was not on same level as Toro Rosso pair, in car that was arguably better than this years Toro Rosso. So in the world of Budget or Talent or both… he has to little to show.

    2. petebaldwin (@)
      2nd December 2015, 15:51

      @hairs – When you look back, I certainly can’t think of any other teams who have failed to win titles with a relatively dominant cars as McLaren.

      It’s one thing to have a bad car and struggle through a season but it’s so much worse to have the best car and still fail to win.

  4. Can you work out who each team principal voted as their ‘driver of the year’?

    The fact that Rosberg is third and Raikkonen even made it in the top 10 suggests to me that most TP’s can’t see past car pace.

    I would definitely put Ricciardo, Verstappen and Perez ahead of Rosberg; and Raikkonen making the top 10 ahead of Grosjean and Button is a complete joke.

    I personally think that Rosberg drove his best season in 2010, when he scored 3 podiums and doubled Schumacher’s points tally with what was essentially a midfield car. Rosberg and Kubica were the stars of the 2010 season, they drove better than the final top 3 of the championship did.

    As for Raikkonen, he is not half the driver he was from 2003-2006. He was a star on Michelin tyres, he had both terrific qualifying pace and race pace. Nowadays he has neither. He simply hasn’t been the same since Michelin left the sport. Those tyres really complimented his driving style and fitted nicely in his narrow operating window.

    1. I thought Alonso being in the top10 while Button being avoided while driving the same car and finishing ahead of his teammate (incidentally Alonso) would have grasped your attention.

      Anyway :)

      1. @evered7
        Alonso had 2 more mechanical DNF’s than Button. He retired from 8th in Malaysia, 7th in Spain, 9th in Monaco, and 6th in USA. That is about 20 points lost. Generally speaking, he was better than Button this season; although Button should have at least been ahead of Raikkonen.

        1. @kingshark As much as I want to believe that the McLaren would have finished in points, their pace this season doesn’t reflect the same.

          Hence we cannot take for granted that Alonso would have finished in those places from which he retired.

          Anyway, my point was to show how two drivers in the same awful car are being perceived differently.

        2. @kingshark
          Frankly, I can’t think of too many drivers who shouldn’t have finished ahead of Räikkönen. He ended the season with a few good results, but he was so often badly down on pace against Vettel, and made so many costly mistakes (Canada, Austria, Russia, and Mexico, just to name the most striking examples) – way more than any other driver in a competitive car.

          Generally speaking, the team bosses are by no means smarter or more qualified for an objective evaluation of drivers’ relative performances. They can judge their own drivers, and possibly ex-drivers, but don’t count on them to present a reliable in-depth analysis based on carefully chosen facts. Their real area of expertise is a whole different story.

        3. True, Alonso usually timed is DNF’s to just after everybody else pitted.

  5. I suspect that Dennis doesn’t have performance clauses in his contract.

    Maybe he should.

    1. He does. He needs to bring money in. He tried to bring in Danish investors last year in order to keep his job and Kevin’s too.
      But since that didn’t happen, he got Honda to pay for Alonso and threw Kevin under the bus.

      Even now, he is trying to get Chinese investors to pump in money (according to James Allen). Supposedly, that explains his absence from the paddock after the Japanese GP.

  6. Chris (@tophercheese21)
    2nd December 2015, 1:39

    I thought Ron was pro-Magnussen?

    1. I think Ron is pro-Ron.

      1. Chris (@tophercheese21)
        2nd December 2015, 3:44

        Provided that his employees are delivering core competencies via programmatic specificity and leveraging organic growth.

  7. @CotD: Yes, McLaren´s driver-lineup is probably the main reason for them scoring 27 points more than Sauber did 2014.
    That said, the drivers market is incredibily static to the point of boredom. I´d very much prefer if a team like McLaren wouldn´t be able to keep drivers like Alonso and Button and therefor just had to give a promising rookie a chance.

    1. It has just occurred to me, I would like to see McLaren having a B-team. Like Red Bull, they could have a young driver program.

      Not sure how it would work, they may have to have their own facilities and share certain other things, bolt a Honda engine in the back, and they’re ready to go.

      1. Pat Ruadh (@fullcoursecaution)
        2nd December 2015, 12:39

        Aguri Honda perhaps @strontium

      2. ColdFly F1 (@)
        2nd December 2015, 12:43

        The could have bought Marussia! @strontium
        And they can still do it (Manor) – FOM income guaranteed for next 2 years!

      3. @strontium I believe rather than getting a second team they´ll probably have to downsize their budget for their main team soon. Years without a main sponsor, and results that will rather make them lose than gain further sponsors. Hopefully they´ll get a sense of the teams new reality before things go really messy.

        1. @crammond, I believe that McLaren have already stated that they expect to have a budget shortfall in 2016 due to declining sponsorship and a loss of prize money. All in all, the team hasn’t had great financial results recently – they racked up a loss of $25 million in 2014 and their financial forecasts basically admitted that they were relying on Honda to pump money into the team to make up the shortfall.

          However, Ron Dennis’s view of the team still seems to be utterly unyielding – this is a man who reportedly turned down a $35 million a year offer from Diageo in 2014 to become McLaren’s title sponsor because he thought that it undervalued the team.

      4. bolt a Honda engine in the back, and they’re ready to go

        Straight to the pits when the engine inevitably blows, if this season is anything to go by :)

      5. Yeah, and i would like that B-team to crush their A-team just to proove that Button and Alonso is over the hill. :)

    2. Why would you want Alonso and Button to leave – they don’t appear to be performing poorly. If we’re talking about pushing out the older drivers, what about Raikkonen, or even Massa? I suspect Vandoorne would perform rather well against Bottas.

  8. Horners comparison of his team not having been dominant in their 4 dominant years vs Mercedes (where the title also went to the last race in 2014!) is laughable.

    Sure, Red Bull treated their second driver worse at times and got worse results. But for 4 years most of us went into most races rather expecting to see Vettel on pole by a significant margin. And if he did, and his car did not break down, or the team made no large mistakes, we also expected to see a masterclass of driving away in the distance and setting fastest laps at the end of the race while his team held him back. I would sure call that dominance.

    Off course Horner doesn’t want more competition. He just wants to see his team back on top of the pile (as a team principle in F1 would want to).

    1. Horners comparison of his team not having been dominant in their 4 dominant years vs Mercedes (where the title also went to the last race in 2014!) is laughable.

      It really is not. Mercedes is guaranteed to win the race unless something very, very odd happens. Red Bull never had this in 2010 or 2012 (like Alonso Vettel was simply very consistent and finishing on the podium all the time). And definelty not in the likes of Mercedes in 2011 or 2013.

      Vettel was simply sublime all 2011, yes he had the better car but he was just flawless. In 2013 they only won 4 of the first 9 races, Vettel was only twice on pole and we know how good he was at that. It’s really after the summerbreak he upped his game to another level and took a car that was already slighty ahead of weak competition to a level it had not been before the summer break.

      Many still underestimate what Vettel did but he had four brilliant seasons where he was on it almost every single weekend. Yes he had the better car in 2011 and 2013 but never ever in the predicatable way or so far ahead of everyone else than Mercedes have had in the past two seasons. A more average driver would not have scored what he has whilst a more average driver than Hamilton or Rosberg would surely win many many races with this Mercedes.

      1. @xtwl

        It really is not. Mercedes is guaranteed to win the race unless something very, very odd happens. Red Bull never had this in 2010 or 2012 (like Alonso Vettel was simply very consistent and finishing on the podium all the time).

        Alonso had 13 podiums in 2012 to Vettel’s 10, despite the fact that Red Bull was more competitive than Ferrari virtually everywhere apart from maybe four or five races. This is why Alonso was wildly regarded as the best driver on the grid in 2012, not Vettel.

        I agree about 2011 and 2013 though.

        1. Yeah, because with Alonso’s 2 victories in that year vs. Vettel’s 6 it makes more logical sense for Alonso to be world champion.

          1. Without wanting to come across all fan-boy, @ho3n3r, I can’t believe anyone thinks that Alonso was outperformed in 2012. It was as close to a perfect season as I have seen from a driver driving a car that is consistently off the pace. It could be argued that Hamilton was equally impressive in 2012 as Vettel or Alonso but I think Alonso could never rely on having a car advantage which Vettel or Hamilton could.

            Make no mistake, it was McLaren that let Hamilton down in 2012. Without their ridiculous pit work, strategies, penalties and unreliability, Hamilton would have walked 2012. But you can only race with what you have or make a bold decision to move, as the top 3 we are discussing have proved.

            For me, Vettel was not at all impressive in the first half of 2012. I rate him amongst the top 3 of his generation, but I feel that Newey won that title as much as Vettel. The contrast in his results after Singapore is unbelievable. Now, of course I pay tribute to his excellent drives but he had a massive car advantage by that point. Alonso had to deal with having the third best car for most of the season and still finished only 4 points off the title. Anyone who is not impressed by that needs to evaluate what they enjoy about the sport. Also for the record, Alonso had 3 victories and Vettel 5.

          2. @ho3n3r
            Alonso had 3 wins to Vettel’s 5, and yes he was the better driver that season.

    2. Totally disagree! The way Mercedes crushed the competition the last two years is disastrous and made it almost unwatchable. Those years before that were so much more enjoyable.

      1. I remember complaining quite strongly about how dull Red Bull made F1 back in 2011. This was before I experienced 2015.

        Looking back at some of the races in 2011 now; like Malaysia, China, Spain, Monaco, Canada, Silverstone, Nurburgring, Hungary, Belgium, and Japan; I realized just how good we had it back then.

        At least 10 or 11 of the 19 races in 2011 were genuinely entertaining to watch. 2011, as one sided as the WDC was, had excellent on-track action.

        McLaren was also much closer to Red Bull that year than most people like to remember. On top of winning 6 races, they could have easily won in Malaysia, Spain, and Monaco as well.

        1. At least 10 or 11 of the 19 races in 2011 were genuinely entertaining to watch. 2011, as one sided as the WDC was, had excellent on-track action.

          @kingshark I agree, it usually gets the mark boring because it was Vettel who won it.

        2. @kingshark, I fully agree to that!
          Every now and then, i’ll re-watch some of the races or qualifying sessions from the 2010-2013 era, often the same race that is about to happen. So last week I watched the 2011 Abu Dhabi qualifying. Q1 and Q2 weren’t that great, but honestly Q3 was amazing. We had Button, Hamilton, Webber and Vettel all improving one after the other. Mclaren seemed to have the edge, with first Button taken provisional pole on his second Q3 lap, and than Hamilton beating that by a increadibly small margin. Red Bull had (as they did many times) timed Vettel so he was last to cross the line, and he delivered a stunning lap, just taking pole away from Mclaren.

          I believe that many people have an oppinion about 2010-2013, which is based on an old feeling they had at the time, when maybe their favorite driver didn’t win. But honestly, watching back some races, you’ll see how good it actually was. There were a lot of mid-field battles too, the field was more bunched up. So I think Horner is right on this one, even though Vettel won all those years, the racing was much better, and it was never fully certain he would win because he always had competition in Mclaren or Ferrari/Alonso or even Lotus and Mercedes. Only the 2nd half of 2013 was pretty much locked down.

  9. Although Ron has other reasons not to give red bull honda engines, Given their season I’m not surprised Honda don’t have enough time to make engines for red bull. Honda’s two drivers got through more engines than the entire Ferrari supply of several teams…
    Maybe if they start building 2017 engines now they’ll have enough to get Sauber on board then…

  10. McLaren and Ron don’t deserve drivers like Button, Alonso, Magnussen and Vandoorne. They are a team very much on a downwards spiral, both on track and in management style.

  11. WilliamB (@william-brierty)
    2nd December 2015, 8:33

    What an appalling statement from Ron Dennis.

    It is sheer absurdity to suggest that a rookie that proved so competitive, on Saturdays especially, against his established star of a teammate somehow disappointed the team. In 2014, Magnussen was the apple of Ron’s eye, and it is reprehensible for him to suggest that he was in anyway in favour of his dismissal in favour of Alonso. Ron, and the team wanted to keep Magnussen, the sponsors wanted Button. I may not have a transcript of a McLaren board-meeting, but we all know that to be true.

    Magnussen left that seat with his head held high with a strong suggestion that he would be returning soon. This year, McLaren has once again failed to uproot Jenson, so it soon became clear that Kevin would be looking at seats elsewhere. Button himself even said that Magnussen was the “best available driver”.

    Ron is now justifying his failures, both in clearing the driver backlog at McLaren and in failing to land Kevin the seat at Lotus, by attacking Magnussen’s reputation.

  12. What I particularly don’t get from Ron ‘surrogate dad’ Dennis’ story about Magnussen is why you’d sack him in October 2015, when his results over the 2014 F1 season weren’t good enough. Why you would leave Button in limbo over late 2014 regarding his seat, when Magnussen didn’t reach his goals over the 2014 season and by interpretation, Button did.

    Judging by his media appearances, Kevin Magnussen is a guy who won’t go out of his way to talk about what really happened here, but I hope this trash talk doesn’t affect his confidence or profile.

  13. Don’t know why Ron feels the need to stick the knife into Magnussen – as people have said he did pretty well. The car wasn’t exactly great that year yet he kept pace with Button, showed good – if scrappy racing and to be honest did a better job than Perez did.

    Even though I’m a fan of Button, I was surprised when they kept him and not Magnussen – especially after the needlessly protracted will they keep or not saga at the end of the season. Boullier was only saying not long ago how happy they were with Magnussen and were determined to help him stay in F1. In short, he was a decent driver, arguably at least able to equal Button, who they kept.

    Although I like McLaren and Honda, I am not a fan of Ron. He may have done some good things for the team in the past but he seems to have his head in the sand over his team’s decline – which being blunt has been happening for a while, long before Honda. Sponsor-bare and the worst season in their history? I don’t imagine McLaren can take many more seasons like this – they got lots of problems but drivers are not one of them.

  14. The goals setup for Magnussen was to beat Button in qualification and get Danish sponsors. He lost 9-10 to Button in Q and he didn’t get any sponsors.

    The goals might have been unfair. But Dennis is technically correct.

    They started negotiations with Alonso in March 2014. So already at the beginning of the season Magnussen knew that either he or Button would be kicked out next season. Personally I think that the massive pressure and lack of support from McLaren got to him and he choked.

  15. “He was given every opportunity – a season in Formula 1 followed by very clear goals that he had to achieve in 2014, and he didn’t achieve those goals,” Dennis said.

    So he was given goals to meet in 2014 and he didn’t meet them. Mr. Dennis, I would be able to accept that was actually your reason for sacking Magnussen if it wasn’t for the fact that (a) Magnussen was in with a serious shout of taking Button’s seat for 2015 until very very very late in 2014, and (b) Magnussen was retained as official reserve driver until October 2015.

    I’m sorry, I don’t buy it. I think Ron is trying to talk McLaren up again, generate some interest and get people thinking of them as a top team again because for the last 3 seasons, they really haven’t been one. They have a world champion driver who considered a sabbatical, they have a partnership with an engine manufacturer which has offered nothing like the necessary levels of performance and they are losing out commercially to the current grandee teams (with the likes of long term partners Boss going to Mercedes, Tag going to Red Bull and Johnnie Walker about to up sticks to Force India). It must be doing Ron’s nut in. He’s trying to pitch McLaren to the world as the pinnacle of British motorsport, a team you have to pay a premium to be associated with and yet his cars are slower than all bar the Manor’s. He is just trying to make it look like McLaren still have their pick of the drivers but I don’t think it is true anymore.

      1. Exactly. Ron’s statements have nothing do with Magnussen’s performance. Hope Magnussen gets the seat in Manor and overtakes both Button and Alonso in 2016.

  16. As I said last year there were/still are a lot of engineer’s at McLaren who feel Kevin Magnussen should have kept the seat for this season because they believe he had a lot of potential to improve on the areas where he was struggling a bit last year.

    The fans (And media) tend to look only at the results, They see who beat who more & who had more points & draw there conclusions purely from that. The engineer’s & to an extent the teams tend to look well beyond just that, They have all of the data on not just there drivers but also those from rival teams & have a far greater understanding on every drivers strength/weaknesses & why they had the results they did than the fans ever will.

    Let us take Jenson Button for example, He had an OK debut season but was pretty soundly beat by Ralf Schumacher in both qualifying & races & it was the same result the following season against Giancarlo Fisichella at Renault however a lot of the engineer’s were still talking him up as a potential world champion even if his performances at the time were not really backing up that view.

  17. Another Magnussen with wasted talent and a brief F1 career. Like father, like son unfortunately. When does Ron Dennis get sacked for poor results?

  18. Predictable results turn fans off, says Horner

    I disagree. People want to watch F1 because it is the premier motor racing series. I am sure there were people put off by one team winning when it was Ferrari, and again when it was Red Bull. It just happens that now it is Mercedes that are winning, and yes, there will be people put off by that. Will it be more than when it was Ferrari or Red Bull winning? Maybe it’s a bit more, but maybe it’s a bit less too.
    Really, this is what the people who do the live broadcast are paid to do, to make a boring race look interesting, which is why there are times when Mercedes don’t get much attention in a race, because there wasn’t much point. The interesting things were happening further down the grid.

  19. Magnussen bring ‘dismissed’ for results he had in a previous season is amazing to me. Next week Ron will tell us that Hamilton was “released from his contractual obligations for a mutually derisory 2011 campaign”. I think Magnussen is a top talent, although I have not been completely blown away by him. If we use Button as a marker during his career we can see that he was as close to Alonso and Hamilton as any other team-mate and had the beating of Barichello and Villeneuve who were no jokes themselves. Perez was beaten and he has shown himself to be a match for Hulkenberg who is also highly regarded. By this logic, a rookie coming in should be expected to score roughly more that half his points and Magnussen would have done that had Monza and Spa penalties not been applied. That to me shows Magnussen to be worthy of a seat in F1.

    I am all for employing world champions because at least you know they are not the winning for someone else. However, a long term strategy will have to be employed at some stage and it makes sense to have one driver who is game ready. For me, Vandoorne has usurped Magnussen and that is why K-Mag has been let go. They clearly believe that if Alonso does go then Stoffel will be the one to replace him, which is not a bad shout. Then they can poach a Red Bull driver when Jenson quits. But I don’t think Alonso will give up. Although things are worse than anticipated, he’s left McLaren after one year before and regretted it so to do so again would only be to a top WEC seat.

    As for a B-Team, McLaren have been down this road before and came to no conclusions. In 2006 the plan was to take-over Midland which resulted in a partnership with Force India years later but no B-Team. Sauber were touted at one point, so too Super Aguri and now Manor. I think the thought of a B-Team beating McLaren would kill Ron. He wants a partner but if Sauber wants Honda engines then they should have to run Vandoorne. But I cannot see Honda agreeing to that given they pay Alonso’s wages and traditionally want a Japanese driver. Sauber also have enough contract problems without removing both drivers for 2017.

    Put simply, McLaren should not be a finishing school so therefore must employ only the best. The problem arises that there is no where for future stars to go and for that we should blame F1 as a whole.

  20. Regarding Magnussen, I think Ron is angry that Kevin made his engine explode in the formation lap itself.

    Alonso and Button were able to go some distance into the race before that happened. Clearly Kevin isn’t adept at managing that genius of a PU.

    Hope he finds another team to drive for in F1 soon.

    1. Also waiting for the day Ron will sack himself for the shoddy job that he has been doing managing the team.

      1. Didn’t he do that already when he handed the team to Whitmarsh?

        1. Waiting for a historic repeat then :)

  21. @Davef1

    When two world champions, who have driven some of the best cars in the sport, are available then it’s a no-brainer you take them.

    Having two world champions is just a waste of money IMHO. A Vandoorne-Magnussen line-up would have finished in the exact same position in the constructors championship and they would have spend $35 million less on drivers wages.

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