Kevin Magnussen is out of the pinnacle of motorsports. The Dane drove for Haas last season, before being replaced, along with Romain Grosjean. However, a different sequence of events could have seen him driving for Red Bull instead!

Back in 2018, Daniel Ricciardo decided to leave Red Bull and signed with Renault. This left the garage next to Max Verstappen vacant for the 2019 season. So, Kevin Magnussen and his associates inquired about this racing seat –

“When we spoke to them, it quickly became clear that they had a candidate for the Red Bull seat. (Pierre Gasly, ed.)”

As you can see, it was much after Red Bull had chosen to promote Pierre Gasly from Toro Rosso. Naturally, this also left the seat at their sister outfit open. So, they discussed this possibility with the Danish driver. Appearing a guest on TV3’s Formula 1 studio, he told BT –

“But they mentioned that there would be a vacancy for Toro Rosso. It was not a question of them submitting a contract or the like, but it was clearly an option.”

Why did Kevin Magnussen reject Toro Rosso?

Toro Rosso had also decided to let go of Brendon Hartley, that’s why both the seats were vacant. So, Red Bull were scrambling to fill those seats up and asked Magnussen to join hands with them.

However, the Dane just had the best season of his career with Haas. The American outfit finished in 5th place in the 2018 constructor’s standings. They were much ahead of Toro Rosso in terms of performance, especially on the engine side.

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“We chose not to pursue the opportunity because I was really happy with Haas and believed that we could continue the positive development we had through 2018,” said Kevin Magnussen.

In hindsight, that turned out to be a poor decision from Magnussen. Haas dropped to ninth place in the 2019 standings, while Toro Rosso bagged a couple of podiums. Looking at the current scenario, the new rebrand AlphaTauri is looking even sharper on the grid. So, it was a decision that Magnussen may not want to look back on.

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