During the race, Haas driver Magnussen got three separate penalties for leaving the track to get ahead of Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton.
Magnussen used similar tactics earlier in Saudi Arabia this year. Even after getting penalized, he defended his position well enough for his teammate, Nico Hulkenberg, to secure a point.
After the race, Magnussen told Sky Sports F1 that he deserved all the penalties. He said, “I started using these stupid tactics, which I don’t like doing, but at the end of the day, I did my job as a team player.”
He got three 10-second penalties for his actions. The stewards talked to him to see if his behavior was unsportsmanlike.
The stewards said that Magnussen thought he was allowed to race the way he did. He also said that creating a gap between himself and the cars ahead was normal and often helped teammates.
The stewards decided not to take any further action against Magnussen because they didn’t find clear evidence that he intended to behave unsportsmanlike. However, they disagreed with how he drove during the race.
Because Magnussen repeated these actions, the stewards suggested making changes to the rules to give them more power to penalize drivers like him. They want to discuss these changes with the FIA and the stewarding team to discourage such behavior in the future.
