Magnussen dumped on birthday by McLaren

It was rather inevitable, but McLaren’s poor driver management skills have continued with how they dumped poor Kevin Magnussen.

The 23-year-old who has come through the McLaren Formula One team’s Young Driver Programme, was Jenson Button’s team-mate for the 2014 Formula One World Championship season.

The Danish driver stood on the podium on his debut in Australia and finished 11th in the championship after scoring 55 points.

For 2015, McLaren signed two-time Formula One World Champion Fernando Alonso and both Magnussen and Jenson Button appeared to be kept in the dark throughout 2014 on who would be kept to partner him.

It turned out that Button would be kept and Magnussen would drop down to reserve driver.

Due to Alonso’s crash in testing, Magnussen started the 2015 season in the car and was due to race the Australian Grand Prix before technical gremlins prevented him from making his 20th appearance.

For 2016, it wasn’t clear where Magnussen stood within McLaren Honda.

Fernando Alonso is almost one year into a three-year-deal, whilst Button appeared to flirt with retirement before agreeing to a new 12 month deal.

Would Magnussen remain as reserve driver? Or would Stoffel Vandoorne replace him? The latter proved true after he clinched the GP2 Championship in dominating fashion.

But whilst the writing was on the wall for Magnussen, he still wasn’t informed in person and was actually dumped by email on his birthday.

‘When the date of McLaren’s option on me passed, I was kind of waiting to hear from them, I didn’t hear anything for a few days, and then, after about a week, when I saw an email from Ron’s [Dennis, McLaren chairman] personal assistant Justine [Bowen] in my inbox, I had an idea of what it might be. he told motorsport.com as quoted by Sky Sports.

‘It was a short paragraph explaining that there would be nothing for me in the future. It arrived on my birthday, actually.’

Jenson Button told Danish newspaper BT : ‘I don’t know whether or not he’s got a chance of bagging any of the remaining vacant Formula 1 seats, but he’s clearly the best driver available, and I’d therefore very much recommend him to any team that has a vacancy.

‘He’s good enough not only to race in Formula 1, but also to help a team succeed in Formula 1.’