ELKHART LAKE, Wis. – Kevin Magnussen was quite young when his father, Jan, last competed in the CART Series driving for Pat Patrick.
It was 1999 when the elder Magnussen drove in seven CART races, with a best finish of seventh at Vancouver in the No. 20 Visteon Reynard/Ford.
At the time, Kevin was just seven, but watching his father compete in the high-speed CART machines left a lasting impression on the youngster from Roskilde, Denmark.
“It’s never been a secret that IndyCar is something that I am pretty passionate about,” said the Danish driver. “It’s nothing new. My dad raced Indy cars in the mid-’90s when I was only a small little kid, and I can remember back then that I was thinking, ‘I’ve got to do that one day.’ So, it’s nothing new. I’ve never hidden the fact that I had a massive interest in IndyCar.
“But I’ve also never hidden the fact that I just am a passionate racing driver that loves driving cars and competing, and as I said, I’m fortunate and privileged to be able to go around and drive all these different cars. Last week I drove at an awesome track in Detroit and won. We had a lot of fun, and that’s the real privilege of being me at the moment is being able to just have this much fun with what I do.”
After making 119 starts in Formula One for McLaren, Renault, and Haas F1, Magnussen made the move to Chip Ganassi Racing’s Cadillac sports car effort this season.
But with Arrow McLaren SP’s Felix Rosenqvist continuing to recover from injuries suffered in a crash in last Saturday’s first race of the Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix at Belle Isle, Magnussen got the call to fill in for the injured driver from Sweden this weekend at Road America.
Magnussen also drove to victory in Ganassi’s Cadillac last Saturday in the IMSA race at Detroit.
“I wasn’t expecting that,” Magnussen said. “It’s quite a kickass prize.
“It doesn’t really compare to any experience I’ve had. This is certainly the very least prepared I’ve ever been to step into a race. But at the end of the day, as I said at the beginning, it’s not the greatest circumstances when you’ve got a driver out who got hurt in a crash. As I said, I think he’s recovering very well. But yeah, when you get an opportunity like this, I’m a racing driver, a passionate one, and when an opportunity comes to go and drive an awesome race car like an INDYCAR, I had to take it.”
When Magnussen learned that his Formula One ride was going away, he began to realize additional opportunities could come his way.
“After leaving Formula One, it’s like a whole new world of opportunity has opened up,” Magnussen said. “It feels very good to be able to look at all sorts of different things and just go and have fun with what I’m doing.
“I’m a racing driver and a very passionate one. I love driving race cars, and I love competing. Being able to do all these different things and experience all these different cars and tracks around the world is really a privilege, and this weekend is going to be another big privilege.”
Magnussen tested a DPi car at Road America earlier this year and that helped him realize how cool it was to drive around the 14-turn. 4.014-mile road course.
“It’s a very fun track to drive,” he said. “Lots of history here, as well, so it’s a great place to go racing. The team has quite a bit of experience, and the engineers have been very good in giving me all the information that they could, and I’ve been watching videos — I watched the race from previous years and just tried to get an idea of how it’s done.
“I’m as prepared as I can be with the limits of time, but it will be a steep learning curve for sure when I get in the car for the first time this afternoon,“ Magnussen added. “I think it’s very lucky that I have this opportunity at this track because it’s a very cool track. It’s one of those that has a lot of history, as well. They used to race through the city, and it’s kind to comparable to Spa-Francorchamps and Watkins Glen and those kind of places that has that kind of history from way back. So, it’s always special to go to those places that have a different atmosphere and special feeling.
“Another part to be very happy about is the location of this race.”
It also brings him back to the McLaren brand, a team he raced with in Formula One.
“It’s been home for me for many years,” he said. “Quite long ago now, it was 2014, but I spent my whole kind of junior career being a young driver for McLaren in their F1 program and I have a lot of good memories of that. They gave me my first Formula One race and season, my podium in F1, my first race and lots of good memories in that regard.
“It’s nice to be back with that brand.”
Though Magnussen was 23rd of 25 drivers in practice Friday, the 14 laps he turned – highlighted by a best lap of 1:50.4921 – were valuable as Magnussen works to quickly adapt to Indy car racing this weekend.
“Today was a lot to take in,“ Magnussen admitted. “I took it step-by-step and it was fun. It’s a wild beast, heavy in the steering wheel and it’s got a bit of turbo lag. It’s very, very different to anything I have ever driven. So, it was a great experience and I can’t wait for tomorrow.
“I want to thank everyone at Arrow McLaren SP and Chevrolet for helping to get me up to speed.”