Ron Dennis insists Dane's F1 career has just been put on "pause"; Eric Boullier says team could place K-Mag elsewhere on 2016 grid
Friday 12 December 2014 11:42, UK
McLaren chiefs Eric Boullier and Ron Dennis are adamant that Kevin Magnussen's Formula 1 career has only been “paused” and the young Dane will ultimately return to the grid.
The long wait over whether McLaren would select the youth of Magnussen or the experience of Jenson Button to pair alongside the incoming Fernando Alonso in their 2015 line-up was finally ended on Thursday as the team announced the Briton had been handed the second race seat.
As a result of that protracted decision, Magnussen will drop down to a test and reserve role at Woking for 2015. However, despite the demotion and the fact F1 testing opportunities are limited, McLaren insist the 22-year-old isn’t heading down a career cul-de-sac.
“There is a lot of emotions because we can understand he’s disappointed to not be racing next year. The best we can offer him is to be part of the family,” Boullier, McLaren’s Racing Director, told reporters after the announcement.
“The McLaren-Honda project is huge, there is enough room for him to keep learning, especially from these two guys [Alonso and Button], by attending the races but also by being on the other side. Having now the experience of one year [he can] assess his vision and commitment through simulators and other technical duties we will ask him, [which] will be different.
“I don’t know if we can give him some chance sometime to test – maybe – so he keeps contact with racing cars. I’m also pretty sure benefitting from this experience will help to raise to his profile. He had a very good year, as a rookie driver he did a very good job, and there is no reason he should not be back in F1 racing sometime.”
Boullier, who said there were many “pluses and minuses” for Magnussen and Button’s respective 2015 candidatures as the team’s management agonised for weeks over the decision, raised the possibility that McLaren could place the Dane in a race seat elsewhere on the grid in 12 months time. Alonso and Button are said to have penned multi-year deals.
“It could be a possibility, but there is no discussion yet. But Kevin has definitely 100 per cent of our support. He has more chance than anybody else sitting in the room to be in F1 in 2016,” the Frenchman added.
It has been speculated that both Boullier and Dennis, the McLaren CEO, originally wanted Magnussen to partner Alonso and the latter revealed on Thursday that a chat with Button immediately after the season finale in Abu Dhabi proved a turning point in the deliberations.
Dennis, who chose to promote Magnussen to a race seat this year in the first place, has tipped the youngster to emulate the early career paths of Alonso and McLaren great Mika Hakkinen.
“He will get back in because basically it’s a pause; we’ve had to press a pause button. He will be a great driver," Dennis insisted.
“I pointed out to him that I truly believe that he was going to have something in common in both Fernando and Mika Hakkinen. The thing I think he’s going to have in common is that one year’s testing does not take away your opportunity of being in Formula 1.
“Of course, Fernando spent one year testing between Minardi and racing for Renault. Mika did two years at Lotus, came here did one year’s testing and then raced for us. Both, of course, then subsequently went on to win the world championship. He [Kevin]’s so young.”
Magnussen himself expressed hope that he would be able to dovetail his testing duties with some race action in another category during the course of 2015, although made clear he wasn't giving up on his F1 career.
"I’d like to be racing something, but nothing’s certain yet. It will take a couple of weeks probably before we look into that," he said.
"It has been difficult to take. You expect a lot of things when you get to Formula 1 and I believe in myself and I believe I can do great things and I wanted to do that. As Ron said, it’s been paused, and that’s not a nice thing, but I still believe that I have a future in Formula 1 as a racing driver.
"That’s all I have right now. I believe in myself, I believe in McLaren and when I come back to Formula 1 I will hopefully come back as a more mature and experienced driver."
