The other McLaren exile hoping to follow Perez's path to a top F1 seat

Daniel Ricciardo isn’t the only driver to have been through tough times as a member of McLaren. Two other current F1 racers each spent one year as part of the Woking empire and both nearly lost their reputations as a result. Yet they have recovered to become well-respected competitors – and one of them has bounced back not once but twice, proving that attitude and determination can work.

Some impressive performances over two years at Sauber persuaded Martin Whitmarsh, then team principal at McLaren, to sign Sergio Perez for the 2013 season. Perez replaced Mercedes-bound Lewis Hamilton and joined another world champion, Jenson Button. But it wasn’t good timing from an engineering point of view; the MP4-28 incorporated new ideas which proved to be overly ambitious and Perez found himself
in a car even Button struggled with; for the first time since 1980 neither McLaren driver achieved a podium.

Checo did a reasonable job; he was outqualified on 10 occasions in a 19-race season so it was almost half and half with Button over a single lap, and he scored 49 points to Button’s 73. It was a decent effort, but not enough to save Perez’s job when McLaren chairman Ron Dennis staged a boardroom coup and ousted Whitmarsh.

Ron turned to McLaren’s doctor and driver coach Aki Hintsa to ask his opinion of the team’s junior driver Kevin Magnussen.  Hintsa had seen various youngsters arriving at McLaren over the years with dreams for the future and often they were so wrapped up in the magnificence of the team that “words would stick in their throats”. But as Oskari Saari elaborates in his book The Core – Better Life, Better Performance,  “the Danish driver who walked into Hintsa’s office was unfazed. He didn’t even smile. He was nervous but not because of the size of the operation. Hintsa liked the young man’s attitude and determination (and) recommended that Magnussen be accepted into McLaren’s junior programme.”

Magnussen developed rapidly, both physically and mentally, through a three-year period and Hintsa was happy to recommend him for the top step after Kevin had wrapped up the Formula Renault 3.5 Series. “Magnussen was given a contract and Perez the boot…” 

Kevin joined at the start of a new era in F1; the beginning of hybrid technology. His season started well, as Magnussen finished a genuine third in Melbourne, which became second after Daniel Ricciardo was excluded for a fuel-flow infringement, and Jenson inherited third. It was a stunning start to Kevin’s career, yet it remains the high point so far; the rest of the season revealed a lack of front-end downforce due to the car’s high nose and a difficulty in managing airflow. 

Magnussen made a stunning F1 debut at the 2014 Australian GP with a podium finish, but it remains his only grand prix rostrum

Photo by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images

Like Perez Magnussen was outqualified 10-9 by Button, and he scored 55 points to Jenson’s 126. Initially it looked like Button was retiring at the end of the season while Fernando Alonso was coming back, but suddenly Kevin received notification that he was out and McLaren was going with a line-up of two world champions.

It was a tough time for the Dane. It was too late to find a seat elsewhere and, although he had one outing as reserve for McLaren in 2015 at the season opener in Australia, Magnussen spent the rest of the season on the sidelines, watching Max Verstappen and Carlos Sainz establish themselves as the next hot prospects. 

Thankfully in 2016 Kevin got another full contract. Unfortunately it was with a team only just dragging itself out of the mire: Renault had bought the suffering Lotus set-up at Enstone and this first year was simply about survival. He scored just seven points but worked well with rookie Jolyon Palmer and there was respect between them. 

Magnussen stayed with Haas until the end of 2020 and then suddenly it was all gone. Formula 1 seemed to have passed him by and it was time to build a new reputation in the States. Yet at the start of this season, as a result of Russia’s attack on Ukraine, Kevin received the call to come back

One year later Magnussen was developing an all-new relationship with Romain Grosjean at Haas. Fast but at times erratic, Grosjean had been with the team from the outset but Kevin soon established himself as a solid player. Feedback from insiders at the time confirmed that Magnussen didn’t always have the fastest pace but his consistency and determination were extremely valuable to the team.

Magnussen stayed with Haas until the end of 2020 and then suddenly it was all gone. Formula 1 seemed to have passed him by and it was time to build a new reputation in the States. Yet at the start of this season, as a result of Russia’s attack on Ukraine, Kevin received the call to come back – and created sheer delight at Haas when he qualified seventh in Bahrain and finished fifth, scoring the team’s first points since October 2020. The engineering team was so happy to have him back.

In the meantime, that other former McLaren reject, Perez, spent seven years at Force India/Racing Point. Suddenly a win at the end of 2020 helped propel him into Red Bull and the chance to win races regularly for the first time in his career. Now that Magnussen is back, perhaps he’ll be able to follow a similar route as some of the veterans begin to leave the sport in the next few years. Perez has shown that experience and continued exertion can work. Magnussen may well be able to do the same.

Can Magnussen follow Perez's path to greater F1 success?

Photo by: Carl Bingham / Motorsport Images