B. T. looking back on the Danish Formula 1-drivers. Today is Jan Magnussen.
At the beginning of the 1990s was Jan Magnussen, both the new father to Kevin (born in 1992) and the most popular talent in international racing.
Three WORLD cup titles in karting and a superb victory in the british Formula 3 championship 1994 got the big Formula 1 teams to stand in a queue in order to secure the Danish super talent.
McLaren (champion 1988-91) Williams (world champion 1992-94) and Benetton (world champion 1995) fought in the summer of 1994 to hire the 20-year-old dane, who eventually chose the McLaren.
After a year as test driver, he got the chance in the Pacific Grand Prix in 1995, where mclaren’s førstekører Mika Häkkinen was diseased.
Despite the minimal preparation and an unknown trajectory did Magnussen well, but when Hakkinen was ready again, was the dane pushed back in the role as test – and reservekører in 1996.
He was now so Formula 1-hungry, that he chose to leave McLaren and wrote in the autumn of 1996 under a contract with the new Stewart-Ford team.
“McLaren boss Ron Dennis warned me and came with a variety of good reasons why I should not bet on a new team.”
“But he also said that he would stop me, and that was the only thing I heard. I should have listened more to everything else,” says Magnussen.
He came almost immediately under pressure with Stewart-Ford.
His teamkammerat Rubens Barrichello was already an experienced Formula 1 driver, and as it turned out, that the new team only had limited resources, focused not surprisingly on the brazilian.
It left Jan Magnussen in an impossible situation.
His car broke constantly together, and when it finally held, bet the dane often violently.
With a short-term feeling at the end of 1997 he secured a new season with the team, but in the middle of 1998, it was over.
a Few days after he with a lucky sixth place finish in the Canadian Grand Prix had secured his and Denmark’s first WORLD cup points, he was fired.
“You can learn one thing from my Formula 1 career: As the new Formula 1 driving, one should not bet on a new team,” says Jan Magnussen in the day.
