Happy birthday to the great dane Kevin Magnussen! He turns 30 today, and EverythingF1 would like to wish him many happy returns.
Magnussen, who is affectionally known as Kmag, joined F1 in 2014 with McLaren. He replaced the outgoing Sergio Perez. He opted to run with the number 20 after he had the same number on his Formula Renault 3.5 car, driving for the DAMS team. He finished his first race P3 and was soon promoted to P2 after Daniel Ricciardo was disqualified due to fuel irregularities. This remains his only podium in F1 to date.
Magnussen spent 2015 as the test and reserve driver for McLaren after Fernando Alonso joined the team. 2016 saw him return to the grid with the newly rebranded Renault F1 Team. They had joined the grid after buying out the stricken Lotus team and replacing both the existing Enstone drivers with Kmag and his new teammate Jolyon Palmer. He suffered a string of mechanical issues during the 2016 season, and also had a nasty accident exiting Radillon when his RS16 went into the barrier and brought out the red flag.
2017 saw Kmag join the F1 newbies in Haas, where he partnered for Enstone driver Romain Grosjean. He replaced the outgoing Esteban Guitierrez. Driving a relatively uncompetitive car that year, he recorded a highest place finish of 7th at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix. During a string of seven pointless finishes, he clashed with Nico Hulkenberg at the Hungarian round. After the race, Hulkenberg confronted Magnussen, with Kmag offering Hulk to “suck his balls”.
Magnussen remained at Haas from the 2018, 2019 and 2020 seasons where the car became more and more uncompetitive after the 2018 season. 2020 saw him score only two points, where he finished P9 in Hungary after an inspired formation lap pitstop in the changing conditions to change tyres and take P9 on the road.
2021 saw Magnussen race in the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship for Chip Ganassi racing. He also drove for High Class Racing in LMP2 at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. He was scheduled to drive for Peugeot Sport in 2022 in the FIA World Endurance Championship, however due to Nikita Mazepin losing his seat in F1, he made a sensational return to F1 with Haas ahead of the 2022 season.