Haas' controversial Saudi GP proves teamwork matters in motorsports, too
Twenty drivers compete in Formula One, but only the top-10 finishers receive points that advance them and their teams in the championship standings.
With Red Bull, Ferrari, Mercedes, McLaren and Aston Martin's Fernando Alonso widely expected to take nine of those 10 points places in most races, the rest of the grid finds itself in an almighty scramble to secure the final one. Forget who finishes first. In 2024, F1 is all about who finishes 10th.
At the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix on Saturday, it was Haas's Nico Hulkenberg who snatched that final points place. His finish was a massive achievement for the American racing team and one that few predicted it would be capable of achieving.
Hulkenberg, however, didn't finish 10th on his own. His teammate, Danish driver Kevin Magnussen, sacrificed his own race to ensure Hulkenberg got the points — and this controversial strategy proved to the grid that teamwork matters just as much as individual brilliance in F1.
Magnussen's Grand Prix was compromised in Lap 12, when he collided with Williams driver Alex Albon and received a 10-second penalty. His punishment doubled a few laps later when he gained an unfair advantage by leaving the track in a battle with Red Bull's Yuki Tsunoda.
Magnussen was in 12th at the time and knew that the additional 20 seconds would drop him to the bottom of the standings. But his teammate, Hulkenberg, raced in 10th because he hadn't yet stopped for new tires. Haas knew Hulkenberg would need to stop eventually and that doing so would drop him down the standings. So Magnussen got to work.
For the middle portion of the race, Magnussen became an immovable object on the track. He drove intentionally slowly and stopped up the race like a cork in a bottle.
After more than 20 laps of this treatment, Magnussen built up a full 25 seconds of space between Hulkenberg and the rest of the field. That was enough for Hulkenberg to do his pit stop without dropping positions in the race.
The result gave Haas its first points of the season and skyrocketed it into sixth in the Constructors Standings.
"It was a great race from Haas," said Williams driver Alex Albon, one of Magnussen's victims. "I have to say, strategy-wise, they played it perfectly."
Plenty of outlets denounced Magnussen's tactics in Saudi Arabia, with respected F1 news site Planet F1 calling for his actions to be outlawed. And it's easy to see why: Magnussen intentionally ruined his own race and the races of every driver behind him.
Magnussen's success, however, comes down to the Saudi Arabian track as much as it comes down to his own actions. F1 has the best drivers and fastest cars in the world. If a handful of them couldn't pass a Haas driving well below its speed threshold, that's because the track didn't offer enough room for overtaking.
The Saudi circuit in Jeddah is a street track, and like many others in F1, it's narrow, cagey and built more for aesthetics than racing. Haas didn't do anything wrong. It simply took advantage of the situation. And it will absolutely do it again.
"I didn't see it, but I was told that he [Magnussen] was really sticking his neck out for me and for the team, you know, holding everybody up," Hulkenberg said after the Saudi Grand Prix, per The Athletic. "I'll return the favor for sure."
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