Kevin Magnussen, Haas, Interlagos, 2022

Interlagos marshals cut hole in fence to help stranded Magnussen return to paddock

RaceFans Round-up

Posted on

| Written by

In the round-up: Kevin Magnussen revealed the bizarre ordeal he experienced trying to return to the Interlagos paddock following his retirement from the Brazilian Grand Prix.

In brief

“I’m glad I wasn’t Lewis Hamilton in Zandvoort” – Magnussen

Magnussen revealed marshals at the Interlagos circuit had to cut a hole in a fence so he could return to the paddock after he retired from the Brazilian Grand Prix last weekend.

The Haas driver started seventh in Sunday’s grand prix but was hit and spun on the opening lap by Daniel Ricciardo, putting both out of the race. However, Magnussen was not taken back to the paddock and was forced to sit in the infield and wait for the race to conclude.

“It was crazy,” Magnussen said. “I don’t know what went on, but it was the most dangerous thing I did all weekend – despite all the driving.

“For whatever reason, I didn’t catch a ride back to the pits. Daniel took me out of the race and then jumped in the Safety Car and took my ride back home to the pits and then I was left at the side of the track the whole race. I tried to speak to the marshals, but they didn’t speak a word of English – none at all.

“After the race, I was kind of waiting for someone to come pick me up or something and the marshals started leaving. And then I was like, ‘okay, what do I do?’. So I walked the same direction, but ended up by a fence that I couldn’t really see a way around. Of course, I could have walked the whole track and went around the start-finish straight, but there was all the fans. The marshals realised that I was in trouble and cut a hole in the fence and lifted me through the fence, which was kind of sketchy.”

Magnussen said he later received an apology from the event officials for their failure to collect him. “I’m glad I wasn’t Lewis Hamilton in Zandvoort, that would have been really sketchy,” he laughed.

Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and go ad-free

O’Ward feared early problem would end practice run

Pato O'Ward, McLaren, Yas Marina, 2022
O’Ward had to crawl around a lap with a technical problem
Patricio O’Ward said he feared his Friday practice run for McLaren would be cut short by a technical problem on his way out of the pit lane.

IndyCar racer O’Ward participated in the first practice session in Abu Dhabi in place of Lando Norris. He completed 22 laps over the hour, but had to cruise back to pit lane on his very first lap out of the pits after his McLaren developed a problem.

“At that point, I was just trying to make sure my communications to the team were clear, because I was getting bounced around quite aggressively in the car,” O’Ward explained. “But I mean, I don’t have much experience, so I don’t know what that meant. I don’t think we knew at the time either.

“We kind of just came into the box and gave it a reset and that seemed to fix whatever was the issue. I’m not quite sure exactly what it was, I’m assuming it was something electrical – maybe a sensor or something. I was definitely like, ‘oh, I really hope it doesn’t get cut short’ because it was a very exciting time for me to get my first FP1 under my belt.”

F1 Manager DRS and Safety Car fix coming in “early December”

Frontier Developments have confirmed that a heavily requested update to F1 Manager 2022 to rebalance DRS trains and allow lapped cars to un-lap behind the Safety Car will be released in “early December”.

Developers Frontier were criticised by players when they originally announced in October that they would cease issuing patches for the F1 management simulation game on all platforms just two months after its initial release. However, in response to the ensuing criticism, Frontier later announced they would continue to support the game and provide patches to address some of the most serious player complaints, including drivers getting caught in endless DRS trains and lapped cars having no ability to unlap themselves behind the Safety Car.

In an update posted on the game’s website, Frontier confirmed that a patch to address those faults is planned for release early next month.

Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and go ad-free

Social media

Notable posts from Twitter, Instagram and more:

Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and go ad-free

Comment of the day

With Formula 1 planning to trial activating DRS one lap sooner in sprint races next season, @f1frog is of the view that overtaking is already too easy in 2022 as it is…

DRS is really never going to go away. I don’t understand why we are trialling more DRS when the new aero rules have reduced the need for it.

In my opinion, overtaking has been too easy this season, and we should be reducing the use of DRS for 2023 with the aim to drop it at least by 2026 if not before. An example would be in the Brazil sprint race. Obviously it would have been incredibly difficult for Kevin Magnussen to win that race, but I think, under the current rules, it would have been impossible in a clean race. Even if Gilles Villeneuve had been driving the Haas, there is no way he could have taken the win by driving perfectly and holding everyone off, as he did in Jarama in 1981, he would just have been overtaken on the main straight by Verstappen with his rear wing wide open. And that is not a good thing.

Similarly, in Spa, Verstappen was able to drive from the back to the front in a quarter of the race. Undeniably, he was outstanding that weekend and deserved to win, even from where he was, but DRS just made it too easy for him, and qualifying has seemed a lot less important this year as a result. DRS was absolutely necessary for getting any overtaking under the previous aero rules, but now it makes it too easy.

In my opinion, the perfect situation would be no DRS at all, but also the car behind being in no way affected by turbulence from the car in front. For 2023, I would suggest DRS should be kept, but only on the shorter straights, never on the long ones, apart from in tracks like Monaco and Singapore. They should also announce at the same time that there will be no DRS at all in 2024, giving the teams a year to design the cars around that fact. But it won’t happen, DRS will stay indefinitely.
F1 frog

Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and go ad-free

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday to Joao and Matteo!

On this day in motorsport

  • Born today in 1969: Philippe Adams, who won the 1993 British Formula 2 championship and started two Formula 1 races for Lotus the following year

Author information

Will Wood
Will has been a RaceFans contributor since 2012 during which time he has covered F1 test sessions, launch events and interviewed drivers. He mainly...

Got a potential story, tip or enquiry? Find out more about RaceFans and contact us here.

17 comments on “Interlagos marshals cut hole in fence to help stranded Magnussen return to paddock”

  1. I completely disagree with COTD that its time to remove DRS but I think this year proved its perhaps worth trialling its removal at some tracks such as Spa, Baku and Interlagos. Tracks that are traditionally easier to pass on I think its fair enough to see the impact of removal.

    I get why some people would prefer no overtaking to DRS passes but I don’t want to return to the Trulli train days either.

    1. I completely agree with COTD – every word. Overtaking should be difficult. The race that spawned DRS was Abu Dhabi 2010 when Alonso got stuck behind petrov. I remember feeling a bit sorry for Alonso but also enjoying the tension of not knowing if he could or couldn’t overtake for many laps – today he would just breeze past using DRS in an instantly forgettable motorway style pass. No tension, no drama, no memories.

      I think this argument also relates to how easy the cars are too drive. Petrov made no critical errors in that race, which could mean he drove his heart out (and scored decent points) or that his job that day was actually not that hard (relatively) because the circuit and the car were not conducive to making errors. COTD talks about Villeneuve at jarama in 1981, which is an excellent example – that car was a dog to drive and he was under immense pressure all race. If he had made one error, all would have been lost. That’s why people still talk about it today. Conversely, people still talk about Abu Dhabi 2010 today but not with any reverence for Petrov. And no one talks about great defensive driving in 2022 at all.

      1. @frood19 new comment of the day right there.

        Defensive driving makes up the other 50% of a great battle. When DC was stuck behind Bernoldi at Monaco 2001, I found myself downgrading DC’s driving and recognising Enrique.

      2. @frood19

        The race that spawned DRS was Abu Dhabi 2010 when Alonso got stuck behind petrov.

        Common misconception.

        The idea of DRS came up early in 2010 more as a reaction to Bahrain been awful that year (Which was more down to them using the longer endurance layout that year) & was added to the 2011 regulations well before Abu Dhabi.

        It was announced by the FIA on June 23rd.
        https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/fia-announces-moveable-wing-changes-4439614/4439614/

  2. The more races I watch the more I realize the clowns are running the circus that is F1. How do you leave a driver on the side of the track for an entire race? The team, organizers, medical team, track workers, …, never noticed? Unacceptable!

    1. @jimfromus

      It seems that not even Haas noticed it…

    2. The problem was Michael Masi, everything is fine now.

    3. @jimfromus @exeviolthor
      His fault when he didn’t use his opportunity to go into the medical car while it was at their collision location.

    4. I just assumed Magnussen chose to stay in the infield for whatever reason. It did seem a bit weird at the time. Could he have run across the track during the late safety car? I would have thought there was a gate somewhere that would have let him up into the back of the paddock. Where he ended up he was probably no more than 100m away from HAAS. Just a little bit of climbing to do.

      I wonder if he tried a bit of Danish with the marshalls? Might have worked.

  3. The way DRS is used makes it obvious that the goal isn’t to improve the quality of the racing and just massively increase the quantity of passing.

    Overtaking should be realistically possible but still difficult enough that drivers have to work for it and where defending is possible via clever car placement and late braking.

    It’s so frustrating with how easy passing has got to the point where there is so much of it now that none of it really stands out. An overtake used to be an exciting and memorable thing but now it’s so easy and so frequent that most of it is completely forgettable.

    Will any pass from the DRS era that involved DRS be remembered? Will any of it be looked back on as fondly as the great scraps and truly exciting overtakes from the pre-DRS era?

    I honestly don’t think any of it will so i think all the past decade has done is created a decade of quickly forgettable quantity over quality which is a real shame. A dark period for the sport.

    1. All this moaning about DRS, but nothing about the fact that F1 cars are fundamentally poor race cars regardless, and have been for far longer than DRS has existed. Their design actively and intentionally discourages on-track competition.
      DRS was introduced and continues to exist because F1 is incapable and unwilling to create a set of regulations that put racing first and lap times second.

      If you want to watch Trulli trains every week, @roger-ayles, there are plenty of races in F1’s archives for you to enjoy.
      A maximum of 16 per calendar year, of course, because any more than that is too many, right?

      By all means, complain about F1 – it certainly warrants it in so many ways – but you don’t have to complain about the same few things every single week.

      1. The DRS issue is fundamental to the sport and should be aired often and vigorously. What are we watching for if not exciting and challenging passes? Yet the DRS aid dilutes that into a dull manoeuvre in most cases.
        The crux of it for me is simply quality over quantity. Yes, pre DRS we had some dull races but even then when a pass occurred it was crafted over the preceding laps displaying cunning and courage. Such a satisfying and entertaining spectacle that is largely lost in the F1 we have today.

        1. What are we watching for if not exciting and challenging passes?

          People watch for a large number of reasons – most notable would be on-track competition.
          While a DRS pass is usually pretty dull, it’s generally better than drivers not even attempting a move simply because they know it isn’t possible.

          F1 as a racing series is broken – but not because of DRS.

  4. He could’ve & should’ve gone into the medical car simultaneously with Ricciardo when it was at their collision site.
    Space for five persons overall, given the model is road car-based, & not like he didn’t have enough time to do so either.

    Yes, Haas could’ve handled the matter better.

    How could defending have been more difficult for Kev without DRS than with it? Somewhat contradictory portion, & otherwise, I disagree that overtaking has been too easy, although some circuit portions, such as Kemmel straight, could do without DRS.

    1. Tommy Scragend
      19th November 2022, 9:11

      How could defending have been more difficult for Kev without DRS than with it?

      No one has said that. The COTD said that it would have been difficult for Magnussen to win the race without DRS, but it was impossible with it.

  5. That Aston Martin website is a real turrd – I know it’s just a silly interview but I quite like the inanity of them. But the corporate dross written there, the product plugs, the awful mottos just make me feel a bit queasy.

  6. I’d much rather DRS not be there & i’d prefer to see them moving towards getting rid of it rather than looking at using it more. But If they are going to keep using it & are going to keep using it the way they are then they need to be smarter about where they place it.

    The aim shouldn’t be to simply have a ton more passing, The aim should be to find a balance so that we can see some good competitive battling where overtaking is possible but not too easy. Putting DRS zones on straights where overtaking was already possible without it (Kemmel at Spa for example) does nothing but make things at times far too easy.

    Put the zones where it will help make overtaking possible where before it wasn’t rather than in places where it isn’t really needed.

    That said I still think that if they want to have an overtaking assist that something along the lines of P2P would be a far better solution. It’s fairer, Less predictable, More in the hands of the drivers & introduces an extra element of strategy for drivers to manage in terms of when/where/how they use it.

Comments are closed.