Coulthard Disagrees With FIA's Penalty Decisions Aimed At Kevin Magnussen

Tuesday, 12 March 2024 at 01:45

Former F1 driver David Coulthard gave his opinion on the 20-second penalty Kevin Magnussen received throughout the 2024 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.

The Haas F1 driver Kevin Magnussen started the race around the Jeddah International Circuit from P13. He was in the mix to possibly fight for points after Lance Stroll's crash.

However, the Danish driver then received two penalties which amounted to 20 seconds in total. He received the first penalty after he squeezed Alex Albon into the wall before entering turn number 4.

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The 31-year-old didn't give the Williams driver enough space and collided with him, so he deserved a penalty. But David Coulthard told Channel 4 he thought 10 seconds was too much for that incident.

"I think the first one he definitely squeezed down Alex Albon, that was a bit unfair, he probably thought Alex is going to back out of it."

“And of course his eyeline was going to be looking at the corner. So I think that was maybe a five-second penalty, in my opinion.”

Magnussen received the second penalty after he overtook Yuki Tsunoda by diving down the inside, going off the track, and keeping the position.

That helped Magnussen's teammate Nico Hulkenberg increase his gap from P10 to cars behind, stop to change tires, and finish the race in P10. Coulthard completely disagreed with this penalty as he said:

"I think the 10 seconds for the one with Tsunoda, that's way too much. They should have said, 'Give the position back.'"

The Former F1 driver suggested Magnussen's race had no purpose after receiving 20 seconds worth of penalties, so the only thing he could do at that point was to help his teammate.

"Thereafter, armed with the information that you've got all those seconds of penalties, he just went defensive. He's pretty feisty anyway, but he enabled Hulkenberg to get a point."