ELKART LAKE, Wisc. – Kevin Magnussen stares opportunities in the face. All the potential, no pressure – exactly the opposite reality that he was freed from eight months ago when his Haas Formula 1 team decided not to bring him or seasoned teammate Romain Grosjean back.
The news was heartbreaking for both of them. In general – especially for those who grew up in the European racing community – the F1 is as high as possible. There’s quite a bit of pressure on the shoulders of a 21-year-old – as old as Magnussen was when he first hopped into a McLaren F1 machine in racing trim in early 2014 and then the Australian Grand Prix weekend with an unexpected Runner finished by the end.
It’s something all athletes have to face, but in Formula 1, where rookies are so young and teams so impatient for results when they pour tens of millions of dollars into these programs, the pressure to perform increases. Only about 20 drivers in the world are allowed to call themselves part of this club in any given year and usually when you’re out you’re out forever.
For Magnussen this weekend at Road America, IndyCar opens a new chapter in America, in which he has succeeded in rediscovering the childlike love for racing, which he said goes back to the time when his father Jan in the middle of the year CART drove with open wheels – late 1990s.
“I was still a little kid, but I remember thinking: ‘I have to do this one day,'” said Magnussen on Friday.
It’s eerily similar to older Magnussen’s breakthrough chance when he made his debut as a substitute in the summer of 1996, with Team Penske replacing injured Paul Tracy over a weekend and then with Hogan Penske Racing over a three-race track that started at Road America. The younger Magnussen’s latest chance comes at the end of someone else’s misfortune. On Sunday Magnussen will drive the No. 7 Arrow McLaren SP Chevy instead of Felix Rosenqvist, who crashed in the first race of the Detroit Grand Prix on Saturday.
But for a driver who has no words about the hope of one day taking advantage of an IndyCar opportunity – ideally more than three days – Magnussen said that unexpected call was the opposite of “pressure”.
The race on Sunday will be a challenge, but an invigorating one.
“I don’t know where the clutch is in these things or how many gears they have. I’m really starting from scratch with a very steep learning curve, ”he told IndyStar. “But that’s a really cool part of the challenge. Getting thrown into that deep water and just trying to update it and approach it the old school way.
“I really like it. It’s a bit extreme not to have too many laps before qualifying, but that also appeals to me a little.”
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Since the end of his F1 career, Magnussen had completely jumped into a different racing discipline after being hired as one of the two full-time drivers for the Chip Ganassi Racing Cadillac DPi program at IMSA. Last Saturday, after three consecutive fifth places at the start of the season, Magnussen helped team-mate Renger van der Zande put the car on pole position and then drive it to a win that was the Danish driver’s first win in eight years .
Despite having a full off-season to prepare, his former Haas teammate Grosjean qualified in seventh place on his IndyCar debut at Barber Motorsports Park and ended the weekend in 10th and surprisingly somewhat disappointed.
Grosjean took his first IndyCar pole in his third race on the street circuit of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and finished second at the GMR Grand Prix.
It begins to paint a picture in which one could possibly have high expectations of Magnussen, who will be driving a car on Friday that several drivers said were the fastest or one of the fastest in the paddock.
This praise comes after AMSP full-time driver Pato O’Ward won his second race in 2021 in the second race of the Detroit Grand Prix last weekend – the first multi-race winner of the year – and took the points lead with just 22 minutes old. Both he and team president Taylor Kiel have said that they have an extremely difficult car in their hands this year, but one that, if mastered, can compete with anyone.
“If he’s not in the top 10 for whatever reason, you can’t say it’s a bad weekend,” Grosjean told IndyStar of his former team-mate. “It’s very different from what he’s driven before, and the weekend is going very quickly. It’s hard to get involved. “
Marcus Ericsson, who drove in Formula 1 from 2014-18, added: “This is the most European circuit on the calendar so I think something like this could have been a lot worse in Detroit last weekend. Even so, he could easily finish 22nd in this field without doing a bad job. But he could also make it into the top 10 if everything goes well. “
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Magnussen said he would approach like a present this weekend, nothing more. He hasn’t been shy in the past about expressing his desire to one day drive the Indianapolis 500, and still at just 28 years old, full-time driving in IndyCar is out of the question – after his World Endurance Championship duties at Peugeot starting in 2022, are fulfilled.
He didn’t deny the possibility that he could also watch some additional IndyCar races next year as he balanced the WEC, although he made it clear that he is not currently involved in any talks. Treating his IndyCar debut this weekend as a means to an end elsewhere takes the novelty away from it all. He wants to enjoy it because he knows how quickly it will fly by.
All of this, the novelty, the competitiveness and the promise that it all brings has given his racing career a breath of fresh air. But he also knows how quickly promises and opportunities can turn into disappointment. It is best to stay in the “now”.
“It’s just a whole new world of opportunities that will open up to me after Formula 1,” he said. “It was so nice to look at all kinds of things and to have fun with what I do as a racing driver.
“You can look at (this weekend) from every perspective, but at the end of the day I’m pretty pumped up. It’s a great car and maybe the best track in the US to do it on. Reason enough to go out and enjoy it. What happens just happens. “
Email IndyStar motorsport reporter Nathan Brown at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter: @By_NathanBrown.
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