McLaren Team Principal Andrea Stella lambasted Kevin Manussen’s defensive driving during the Formula 1 Miami Grand Prix Sprint and said repeatedly “damaging” competitors’ races should effectively result in a race ban.
Magnussen found himself at the mercy of Lewis Hamilton during the 19-lap Sprint after losing DRS to team-mate Nico Hulkenberg when the German cut the chicane.
The Dane was then tasked with aggressively defending those behind to ensure Hulkenberg scored points in the Sprint, much like he did in the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix in March.
This saw him leave the track to gain an unfair advantage and run Lewis Hamilton wide in his dogged defence.
As a result, Magnussen accumulated 25 seconds worth of penalties, which the Dane himself said was an appropriate sanction for a driving style he doesn’t even enjoy employing, but Stella was more than adamant that this wasn’t a suitable punishment.
“For me it’s actually relatively simple because we have a case of a behaviour being intentional in terms of damaging another competitor,” Stella told media including Motorsport Week.
“This behaviour is perpetuated within the same race and repeated over the same season. How can penalties be cumulative? They should be exponential.
“It’s not five plus five plus five equals 15. Five plus five plus five equals maybe you need to spend a weekend at home with your family, reflect on your sportsmanship and then go back.
“And if we see that you become loyal, fair and sportsman-like, to your fellow competitors then you can stay in this business. It’s completely unacceptable.”
Stella doubled down on his criticism of the F1 penalty system, which includes points on drivers’ licenses and insinuated that it is perhaps time for the FIA to review its process.
“I guess the penalty points is still in place,” he said. “It is in place so I don’t know exactly the situation for some drivers. I have to confess.
“But it definitely may mean that the metrics might have to be adjusted.
“Damaging intentionally the race of competitors just makes no sense from a sportsmanship point of view and this should be addressed immediately because if you are out of the points [and] you get 20 seconds or whatever at the end of your race it doesn’t make any difference.
“But for the competitors you have damaged you have put them out of their race. Again, in a deliberate, perpetuated and repeated way. This is completely unacceptable.”
Stella went on to claim that perhaps the FIA could have been caught by surprise that the same driver and team committed to the same tactics within a single quarter of an F1 campaign and believes it is a matter that the governing body will look into.
The McLaren Team Principal cuts a calm, collected figure and in his response to Magnussen’s driving on Saturday his words were woven to communicate his admittedly “strong” opinion to ensure that action is taken to ensure the likes of Haas’ tactics aren’t repeated for a third time.
“I want to reiterate that these values of being fair it’s a sport, it’s a competition we need to give everyone a fair chance to compete,” Stella said.
“These values need to be taken into account in creating the appropriate set of regulations.
“But I’m sure the FIA will look into that and will come up with a sensible proposal for the Sporting Advisory Committee to evaluate and hopefully this will become soon either rules or guidelines that the stewards can apply.”
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