Jan Magnussen

After blazing a trail through British F3 in 1994, Jan Magnussen’s early wins had looked effortless and he seemed set for a glittering grand prix career. He entered twenty five Grands Prix, though only started twenty four as his car was damaged in an accident during the start at Brazil in 1997, causing him to retire before the restart. Unfortunately F1 didn’t work out for him though he went on to have a long and extremely successful career in sports cars.

Jan Ellegaard Magnussen was born in Roskilde, Denmark, on the 4th July 1973, and both of his parents worked in the police. When he was eleven, he switched from motocross to karts, not least because “it hurt less when you fell off” and took his first regional title by the time he was twelve and was junior world champion in 1987, at the age of 14. His open-wheel debut in Danish Formula Ford 1600 came in 1991 where he scored points with an eighth place finish on his debut at the Jyllands-Ringen. In the following year he left Denmark to contest British Formula Ford and in his debut season with Foundation Racing took six wins out of seventeen races to finish third in the championship. He also won the prestigious Festival at Brands Hatch, despite starting his heat from the back.

A move to Formula Opel in 1993 saw him take three wins and seven podiums to finish fourth in the championship and in two Formula Vauxhall outings he had one victory. A big break arrived at the end of the year when Paul Stewart Racing hired him for two races in F3 and after finishing fourth and third at Silverstone and Thruxton, he was taken on full-time for 1994 alongside Dario Franchitti. After finishing third in the first round at Silverstone, he dominated the championship and, apart from retiring at Snetterton and finishing fourth and seventh at Brands Hatch and Silverstone, he won fourteen of the eighteen rounds and broke the series’ previous win record held by 1983 champion Ayrton Senna. In two International outings he retired at the Marbororo Masters of F3 at Zandvoort and was third at Macau. He ruined his chances of overall victory in the two-heat event at Macau by crashing in qualifying and ending up eighteenth on the grid. By the end of the first race he was fifth and won the second, passing Schumacher and Fisichella on the way.

His performance attracted the attention of F1 and McLaren hired him as their test driver. His test role put him under a contractual partnership with Mercedes-Benz, who placed him in various series to give some competitive experience and to hone his race-craft, including the DTM and ITC. In 1995, he finished eighth in the DTM and second in the ITC, taking a single win at Estoril in a series dominated by Bernd Schneider. He missed a round at the Norisring after breaking his leg on a moped, “my manager was on the back and she was very badly hurt. We came out of the track, on the way back to the hotel, and I drove straight out into the main street and was hit by a car. It was bad, but I wasn’t out for that long. I was testing 11 days later.” Then in October came an F1 debut at the Pacific GP in Japan, standing in for Mika Hakkinen, who had appendicitis. He told how “The longest run I ever did was four laps and then, on the Sunday before the race in Japan, I was told I’d be doing the Grand Prix..There was no time to prepare, just some practice starts and pit box entries and off to Japan. It was a very stressful week, a real mouthful, but the guys did everything they could to keep me calm, give me space to get myself ready.” He qualified twelfth and in the race was involved in a battle with Rubens Barrichello and finished tenth, two places behind team-mate Blundell. He did not put a foot wrong all weekend and recalled “I had a good fight with (Rubens) Barrichello at the beginning of the race and then towards the end I was closing up on Mark (Blundell). I caught him with a few laps to go. I should have had a go at him. Ron commented on it after the race, but I would have had to take a chance and it was important for me to show I could be sensible. In any other situation I would have found a way, but we weren’t near the points, he was my team-mate and I didn’t want to take him off, and it was my first race and it was very important for me to finish. Everyone was on at me about not being fit. And I just wanted to show everyone that I was fit. It’s great for me not only to finish race, but also to make it to the top ten.” Ron Dennis declared “Jan did an exceptionally good race for his first Grand Prix and I’m sure he is as pleased with his own performance as we are” while Mercedes boss Norbert Haug stated “Jan was very impressive. In his first Grand Prix, he proved to be a real racer, setting the best lap times and being quick coming in and out for each of his three pit stops.” Hakkinen returned for the remainder of the season, and Jan would not be back in F1 until 1997. Looking back, he admitted “I’m sure another season or two under Ron’s guidance as test driver for McLaren would have been better. I’m not afraid to admit that I was very, very young-not only in years but also mentally. But then who is going to turn down an F1 race seat?” Dennis later recalled “the thing I remember about Jan, was that he never seemed to know why he wasn’t quick, and he was the most disorganised grand prix driver I’ve ever known. I remember once we were at an airport. Jan had packed his passport into his suitcase and when he opened the suitcase to find it, it looked like it had been packed by a four-year-old. It looked like he’d gone round the room and just thrown everything into it-including the dirty washing. And none of his toiletries were in a bag..People like that are chaotic in their thinking. I thought ‘There’s no way he’s going to make it.”

He continued in the ITC the following year with AMG’s C Class and started with second and victory in the first round at Hockenheim. Further results included seventh and third at Nurburgring, sixteenth at Diepholz, fifth at Mugello, fourth at Hockenheim, third and fourteenth at Interlagos plus seventh and third at Suzuka. There were several CART appearances with Penske and Hogan Penske in August and September. After Paul Tracey crashed and injured his back during practice at Mid-Ohio, Jan stood in for him at Road America and finished fourteenth. Emerson Fittipaldi was injured in a crash at the Michigan Speedway, sustaining fractured vertebrae and a collapsed lung after hitting the barriers at more than 190mph, which ended his career as he never returned to the series as a driver afterwards. He replaced him at Hogan Penske Racing for three rounds but retired at Road America and Vancouver, though finished eighth at the final round at Laguna Seca. There were differing opinions following these drives, with some claiming he was out of his depth and unable to drive to his limit while others felt he did well in difficult circumstances. Nigel Beresford, who engineered for him with Penske at Mid-Ohio, said “Jan struggled because the cars are very heavy to drive. It’s probably fair to say we didn’t get the best out of him because we didn’t give him a good car. There were also reliability issues. We didn’t do a good job.” Hogan Penske’s team manager Tom Wurtz told how “we were very encouraged by his ability to jump in the car and get a feel for it. He adjusted well to everything. I don’t agree he couldn’t handle it physically. He was very gung ho, ready to take on the world. In a short period of time, he showed a lot of potential.” Although he had an option to stay with Penske for 1997, he turned it down in favour of F1 with Stewart. His manager David Sears told how “the deal was for a part programme with lots of testing in his first season and a full-year after that. We should have taken it but Jan had always wanted to do F1, so we felt he should go to Stewart.” Jan later admitted “at that time, I had my mind set on F1, so I didn’t look at it that hard. I regret that..I liked the American racing scene very much, the more relaxed atmosphere. But at that time I was still very keen to succeed in Formula 1 and I was quite verbal about it, so that closed any doors that might have opened for me over there. I didn’t show IndyCar the respect. I should have done but the cars were great to drive, very powerful, and much more mechanical than an F1 car.” In response to accusations of lack of physical strength, he said “I went to the US straight from the hospital,” (after missing two touring car meetings after breaking his leg).

After the sacking by the Stewart team, he told how “I went back to Denmark and was ready to pack it all in. I was disappointed in myself but also with people in F1. I thought about quitting. Then David Sears called me about testing in the US with Panoz. It wasn’t something I really wanted to do but it was such a weird, wonderful car. I felt a good sense of team spirit; good people around me. I felt that people wanted me there.” Despite doubts about racing the Panoz, he changed his mind as soon as he had tried it out, “it was a little bit weird, with a front engine, like a Batmobile, and it sounded amazing, a real monster. It took a while to get used to sitting so far to the rear, but the test went well, I was fast, and Don Panoz offered me a deal right there for 1999. I went back to Denmark, packed my bags, and moved to America within a week.” The team’s motorsport boss Tony Dowe said “he didn’t want to leave without signing an agreement. We did the deal there and then. I was surprised I got him. I wouldn’t have thought he was interested in Panoz, or racing in sportscars in North America.” Sears admitted “the stigma of being sacked by Stewart made it difficult to convince people in Champ Cars that Jan was worth taking on. The touring car people, meanwhile, thought his head was still in single-seaters. We were scouring the world for other options.” The first two ALMS rounds in a Panoz GTR-1 saw retirements at Sebring (alongside Johnny O’Connell and John Nielsen) and Road Atlanta (with O’Connell). He contested the following rounds with an LMP 01 roadster alongside O’Connell and gave the team its first victory, in the third round at Mosport (from pole), was second at Laguna Seca, third at Sears Point and Portland, fourth at Las Vegas and fifth at Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta (the pair were joined by Memo Gidley). He also had seven late season CART outings with Patrick Racing though it was a disappointing period and he only managed one top ten finish. He was eighteenth in his first drive at Detroit, with a Swift chassis, but the team then switched to a Reynard chassis and his results included seventh at Vancouver, eleventh at Surfers Paradise and thirteenth and fourteenth at Houston and Mid-Ohio though he retired at Chicago and Laguna Seca.

He was not retained for 2000 and though his single-seater career was over, he would go on to rebuild his career in endurance racing. “I didn’t understand until I began working with Panoz that I was so unhappy in F1. I realised how much I enjoyed racing, and how little I enjoyed all the bullshit of F1. So I didn’t try at all to come back to F1. That’s not to say I wouldn’t try it again. I really wanted to be successful but I didn’t know what I had to do to be successful. I’ve learnt that since then. But the more I thought about it the more I realised it wasn’t only me. It was many things around me.” Panoz went on to beat BMW to that year’s team’s title and in the four years with them he took a further five victories and numerous podiums when teamed with David Brabham. Reflecting on those times, he added “sometimes it’s great being the underdog. We didn’t beat the Audis and the BMWs on a regular basis, but we did beat them a few times and those were such massive wins. I loved it, these were proper battles and we had a small team, just 15 people, when Audi had hundreds of guys. Winning again was so good, celebrating all night.”

It would take an extremely lengthy article to list all his achievements since the mid-2000s but highlights include winning the Danish Touring Car Championship in 2003 and 2008, finishing second in 2005, 2006 and 2009 and third in 2007. He also won the Danish Thundersport Championship in 2012 and was runner up in 2014 and 2017. At Le Mans, he was second with Audi Sport Japan alongside Meiji Ara and Marco Werner in 2003 then in the following year began a 16 year association with Corvette Racing. He would go on to record four victories there, three years in a row in 2004 to 2006 (with Oliver Gavin and Olivier Beretta) and in 2009 alongside Johnny O’Connell and Ron Fellows. He was second in 2007 and 2008 with O’Connell and Fellows then again in 2014 with Antonio Garcia and Jordan Taylor plus third with Garcia and Taylor in 2017. Further Corvette highlights included victory at 2015’s Daytona 24 Hours with García and Ryan Briscoe, second in 2016 with García and Mike Rockenfeller and third in 2018 with Garcia and Rockenfeller. There were three victories at the Sebring 12 Hours, in GT1 in 2006 (with Beretta and Gavin) and 2009 (with O’Connell and Garcia) plus in GTLM in 2015 alongside Garcia and Briscoe. He and Garcia took back-to-back IMSA GTLM titles in 2017 and 2018 though he left the Corvette team at the end of 2019. Alongside Le Mans, ALMS, American Rolex and Danish Touring Cars there were also appearances in Camaro Cup Sweden, V8 Supercars, NASCAR Cup and Spanish GT and in 2021 he teamed for the first time with his son Kevin (and Anders Fjordbach) in High Class Racing’s ORECA 07-Gibson at Le Mans.