Hulkenberg calls for stewards rethink after Magnussen ban

Nico Hulkenberg has called on F1 stewards to rethink how they hand out penalties after Haas team-mate Kevin Magnussen was banned from the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

For a Turn 4 incident at the Italian GP involving Pierre Gasly, Magnussen was handed two penalty points and a 10-second time penalty, that triggered a race ban after reaching 12 penalty points in a 12-month period.

He is the first F1 driver banned under the system since it was introduced in 2014, and will be replaced in Baku by 2025 Haas driver Oliver Bearman. 

Gasly himself was prepared to defend Magnussen to the stewards at Monza over the move from which both drivers were able to continue, with Hulkenberg feeling the iron-fisted approach towards contact by stewards needs to be re-considered.

“I didn’t see two penalty points in that, and a 10-second penalty is very harsh in my opinion, and most drivers feel the same way about that,” Hulkenberg told media including RacingNews365 of Magnussen’s penalty.

“I had a case with Fernando [Alonso] in the Austria sprint race where I tried to make a move into Turn 3, locked up, went wide and he had to go off the track, but that is racing. To overtake, we have to leave our comfort zone, and take some risks and then this kind of thing happens sometimes.

“In my case with Fernando, and also with Pierre, both drivers said: ‘It’s nothing’ so it seems that whenever there is a little bit of contact, the stewards want to get involved, they want to have a consequence for it. 

“The drivers feel that it isn’t really necessary for every contact so maybe the penalty guidelines need to be reviewed and changed because we need to be able to race and it is just difficult otherwise.

“It will be boring and dull as we can’t race anymore, we’ll just get penalised all the time, but I am sure it will come up in the driver’s meeting, and there will be talks with [race director] Niels [Wittich].”

Keeping the penalty points

Hulkenberg stopped short of calling for doing away with the penalty point system entirely, believing it did provide a safety net against “extreme” situations.

“It is for extreme cases, and if drivers do something silly or dangerous, it is good to keep us under control and we know there is a consequence if we do something stupid or silly, so I think it should stay in place,” he said.

“Monza is the most recent one, it is fresh in our memory, but [Magnussen’s penalty points] didn’t start from zero this year.

“It is an accumulation of things, but it is good to have it in place for extreme cases, but with all these little racing incidents, it is tricky and a fine line.”