Their time as team-mates in Formula 1 has come to an end, but just a few short rounds before their Haas partnership was over, Kevin Magnussen and Nico Hulkenberg spoke to Motorsport Week about how they functioned as a cohesive unit moving forward together.
A lot was made of Hulkenberg’s arrival at Haas in 2023, not just because he hadn’t driven a full season of F1 since 2019 before being signed. No, Hulkenberg and Magnussen’s infamous spat from Budapest in 2017 where an on-track scuffle filtered out into an off-track exchange had many people thinking the pair wouldn’t get on.
“Once again the most unsporting driver on the grid,” Hulkenberg said to the Dane in the media pen seven years ago.
Magnussen immediately replied, “Suck my balls.”
But, the older, wiser gentleman racers that met as team-mates in 2023 hit the ground running at Haas and helped lift the team from a difficult campaign to a prosperous 2024 season that saw them narrowly miss out on sixth in the Constructors’ standings. Countless times in 2024 Magnussen defended like his life depended on it in order to help Hulkenberg score points with Saudi Arabia and Miami being occasions where it landed the Dane in trouble with the stewards. Both men were always willing to sacrifice their personal races for the greater good of the team and the relationship between the duo off-track has been nothing but positive across the last two years.
Kevin Magnussen and Nico Hulkenberg developed ‘a really good harmony’ at Haas
Like Hulkenberg, Haas offered Magnussen an F1 reprieve, bringing the Dane back to the team in 2022 after a year on the sidelines. Motorsport Week put that shared experience to the German and asked whether that was the key to their strong partnership.
“I don’t know if that’s because of the similarities,” Hulkenberg replied. “I think it’s more the, you know, the characters and the human side. Also on the private side, it’s quite similar points in our lives, we’re both a little bit more mature on the older side, especially me, and I think we just get on. “We know we work for the team, but there’s a really good harmony and relationship that’s grown here over the last two years.”
Hulkenberg is right, both he and Magnussen are men with young families with a combined 416 GPs entered between them. Magnussen reckons Hulkenberg was “surprised” upon arriving at Haas how honest the pair could be with one another.
“I think part of it is our age,” he said. “I think you do become more mature and I think you’re settled and less insecure, I guess. So I think that helps a lot and I think it maybe surprised Nico how he could lay his cards [on the table]. He didn’t need to worry. I’m an honest guy and I think we’ve just kind of actually worked as a team.”
The reality at Haas, which Magnussen points out is that the team isn’t fighting for wins or world championships both individually or as a team. After making its debut in 2016, Haas has still yet to score a single podium. Instead, the smallest team on the grid is a David in a field of Goliaths battling for midfield supremacy.
Magnussen then ponders: “So what is the objective? I think it is to finish as high up in the Constructors’ [as possible]. I think that’s the most important objective you can have in our situation. Who cares where we finish in the Drivers’ Championship? I mean, I don’t even know where I’m at. I can’t remember what my best position in the Drivers’ Championship is. It just doesn’t matter. If you’re not fighting for the win, who cares?
“So I think it really matters where you finish in the Constructors’ because that gives you a huge amount of resource and it means so much to so many people in the team. But that’s something measurable. That’s something you can motivate yourself with. So I think we’ve both been having that mindset and so we’ve kind of worked together on track, we’ve worked together off track and really had the team’s interest at first.”
Now, with the 2024 F1 campaign at an end, Hulkenberg has embarked on his next F1 chapter with Sauber and Magnussen is preparing to make his BMW M Hybrid V8 debut at the Daytona 24 Hours in January. With that, one of the most efficient F1 partnerships has come to an end.
READ MORE – Exclusive: Kevin Magnussen and Nico Hulkenberg fighting to go out on a high with Haas
