04 May 2024 , 17:06
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Kevin Magnussen admitted he deserved all three of his penalties for his illegal defending against Lewis Hamilton - but said he would do it again to help his Haas team.
The Dane cut a chicane, collided with Hamilton's car and ran the Briton off the road in separate incidents in his desperation to keep the Briton behind in the Miami Grand Prix Sprint. In the end, he did enough to allow team-mate Nico Hulkenberg to build a significant gap.
Magnussen was slapped with three penalties but Haas scored two points thanks to the German's result. And even though he said he did not like what he had to do, the 31-year-old said he had no regrets.
The Haas racer told Sky Sports: "All the penalties were well deserved, no doubt about it. But I had to play the game again. I was in a very good position behind Nico there and, at the beginning of the race, I gained a lot of positions and was up in P8.
"I was protected well from Lewis because I had DRS from Nico and had good pace, I felt. But then Nico cut the chicane and I lost DRS - Nico could have given that back to protect me because we would easily have been P7 and P8, but instead I was really vulnerable to Lewis.
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"I started fighting with him like crazy and I had to create the gap like I did in Jeddah, using these stupid tactics which I don't like doing. But at the end of the day I did my job, I'm a team player and Nico scored his points because I got that gap for him. Lewis and [Yuki] Tsunoda couldn't catch him. It's not the way I like to go racing at all, but it's what I had to do today."
Tsunoda secured eighth place and the final point, even though Hamilton had got the better of him on the final lap. The Briton had sped in the pit lane earlier in the short-form race and was given a drive-through penalty at the end of the event.
That was converted into a 20-second penalty which dropped him well away from the points positions. But he was still smiling as he spoke to the media, after a lengthy debrief with team principal Toto Wolff in the Mercedes garage.
Presented with Magnussen's comments, Hamilton said: "I think that's really honest of him and pretty cool. I don't have... we had a good race. It was a little bit on the edge but it felt hard and I love racing hard. For me, I wasn't really p***ed - sorry, frustrated, or anything. That's what you do to work as a team."