Nico Hulkenberg doesn’t “understand the fuss” around the antics in Miami that have placed Haas team-mate Kevin Magnussen on the verge of a Formula 1 race ban.
Magnussen was punished multiple times during the Miami Grand Prix weekend to put the Dane two penalty points from being on 12 across a rolling 12-month period.
The Haas driver’s “unsportsmanlike” driving against Lewis Hamilton in the Sprint prompted McLaren boss Andrea Stella to suggest that he warranted missing a race.
Meanwhile, the stewards at the Miami International Autodrome cleared Magnussen from conduct but advised the FIA to toughen their regulations on repeat offences.
But with Haas engaged in a fight with RB for seventh in the Constructors’ Championship, Hulkenberg has admitted he was not surprised with his team-mate’s conduct.
“Yeah, I mean, I’m not exactly aware of the details of how they were all accumulated in every incident,” Hulkenberg said at Imola.
“But sometimes I think he got a few penalties, I feel, in the last year and a half, since we’re here, that you get penalty points and it was not really maybe right or necessary.
“So, look, for me in Miami he was racing for a P8 in the Sprint, and that’s a point, and for us that’s true value and money.
“So I was not surprised that he was fighting the way he was, and it was not just for me, probably a combination of both.
“But everyone knows Kevin Magnussen is one of the hardest guys to get by, and I don’t understand all the fuss around it to be honest.”
Magnussen argued that he reverted to contentious tactics to protect Hulkenberg’s seventh place in the truncated race, but the German has disagreed with that notion.
“I think that’s where I disagree a little bit,” he countered. “Because at that point I was already well ahead and I would have secured my position. I had it safe anyway.
“I think he was more… he was still fighting for himself personally for that one point also. So I think you have to separate that a little bit too.”
However, Hulkenberg, who will move from Haas to Sauber in 2025, believes the FIA should investigate whether revisions to the penalty points structure could be made.
Asked whether it would be harsh that a driver might have to sit out a weekend, Hulkenberg replied: “Yeah, again I’m not so… maybe I should know more about it, but I try to stay away from it and it’s busy enough as it is, but I think it’s quite long until they kind of get erased, right? I think we could revisit some of it and probably restructure it.”
Funny… when Checo hindered Lewis Hamilton in the final races of 2021, no one said a thing. My feeling is the sport is being decided more behind closed doors than behind the wheel. To the point a Race Director decides who will be world champion….