Kevin Magnussen Punishment Quite 'Harsh', Says F1 Expert
Kevin Magnussen

Credits- Imago

Haas F1 driver Kevin Magnussen has received a one-race ban from the FIA after his incident with Pierre Gasly in Monza, which earned him two penalty points, bringing his total to 12. He became the first driver in F1 history to be forced to sit out because of this, but Marc Priestley believes that a time penalty should have been enough.

On his YouTube channel, the ex-McLaren mechanic said, “I’ve got to be honest, that was harsh… the penalty points – I just don’t understand. For me, that was hard racing.”

Magnussen had a coming together with Alpine’s Gasly at Turn 4 during last weekend’s race. The Dane locked up going into the Curva della Roggia, making contact with Gasly’s A524. He received a ten-second time penalty, which Priestley insisted would have been sufficient.

However, the two penalty points added to his super license post-race brought his tally up to 12 within the ongoing 12-month period, triggering an automatic one-race ban.

Priestley wasn’t the only one who deemed the punishment too severe. Gasly, the driver involved in the collision with Magnussen, also felt that a race ban was unnecessary.

Gasly wants Magnussen’s ban overturned

Magnussen argued that neither driver lost any time or sustained any damage as a result of his shunt with Gasly. The Frenchman agreed and urged the stewards to reconsider their decision.

“When someone told me he had a 10-second penalty I was surprised,” Gasly said as per Formule1.nl. “He tried to overtake me and we were wheel to wheel, but in the end, I didn’t lose any time. I hope the stewards can overturn the suspension because it would be really unfair.”

Haas, however, did not appeal for the FIA to overturn Magnussen’s ban. Instead, they issued a statement blaming their strategy, which they acknowledged had put Magnussen in a difficult situation. It read- “…we shouldn’t have put Kevin in that position behind Gasly, so again our execution wasn’t perfect and that’s something we need to improve.” 

Magnussen is now set to miss the next race, the Azerbaijan GP. Oliver Bearman, who joins Haas full-time in 2025, is reported to make his second one-off appearance of the season in Baku.