Kevin Magnussen cleared of ‘unsportsmanlike behaviour’

Magnussen offered a resolute defence against Lewis Hamilton throughout the 19-lap race on Saturday as he worked to protect team-mate Nico Hulkenberg.

Hulkenberg was in seventh place, worth two points in the short-form race, with Magnussen eighth.

Having fallen outside of DRS range of his team-mate, Magnussen was vulnerable to attack from Hamilton’s Mercedes.

To maintain his position, the Haas driver thrice ran off the road, which saw the Dane slapped with four time penalties in the provisional classification.

Speaking after the Sprint, Magnussen conceded that the penalties were justified but rationalised his actions as being for the greater good of his team.

“The penalties were well-deserved, no doubt about it,” Magnussen admitted to Sky Sports.

“But I had to play the team game.”

Those remarks caught the eye of officials who summoned him over alleged unsportsmanlike behaviour.

In the subsequent hearing, officials deemed that, while unsavoury, Magnussen’s actions did not meet the threshold for punishment.

FIA stewards summary (in part):

The driver candidly explained that he thought that he was entitled to race with Car 44 in the manner that he did and also that he was willing to accept what he considered to be standard penalties that would have been imposed on him for any infringements that occurred while he was battling for position.

He was also of the view that building a gap between himself and the cars ahead was perfectly within the regulations and it was not uncommon for a driver to seek to assist his teammate in the course of a race by doing so.

He did not at any point in time think that what he was doing was wrong or that it was in any way unsportsmanlike.

He highlighted that the Stewards would typically not increase the severity of the penalties for repeat offences.

We considered the matter and found as follows:

1. The standard for establishing unsportsmanlike behaviour must undoubtedly be high.
2. In circumstances such as this one, there must be clear evidence of an intention to behave in a manner that can be said to be unsportsmanlike as a finding of unsportsmanlike behaviour is serious.
3. While we disagreed with the way in which Car 20 was driven today, in particular, the repeated infringements from leaving the track, we do not think that the actions reached the level of unsportsmanlike behaviour.

Having said that, moving forward, the Stewards will need to consider if, in appropriate situations, especially in the case of repeat infringements, the penalties to be applied for each infringement need to be increased to discourage scenarios such as those that we found today. This is something that we will raise explicitly with the FIA and the Stewarding team.

We accordingly take no further action on the present summons.

Magnussen picked up three 10-second penalties in the Sprint as well as a five-second penalty, dropping him to 18th – the last classified runner.

Ironically, Hamilton was also penalised post-race with a 20-second penalty for speeding in the pit lane, which demoted him from eighth to 17th, allowing Tsunoda to claim the final championship point instead.