Your office chair cannot go 300 km per hour. However, you can draw inspiration from the thoughts that driver Kevin Magnussen has had during his career. Thoughts about setting goals, working with his team, and performing under maximum pressure. BARONS met him in Copenhagen to discuss this.
Kevin Magnussen greets us with his eight-month-old daughter in his arms. He has just become a father, moved to Denmark, and left behind his goal of becoming world champion in Formula 1. Kevin considers 2020 a sabbatical year. A turning point in the life of a very goal-oriented 28-year-old.
Kevin Magnussen quickly torpedoes all theories that success requires setting high but realistic goals.
The goal is to be the best
“For me, small goals are irrelevant. There can only be one overall goal, and that is to be the best, to win. It has always been my goal to become world champion in Formula 1. You don’t get far if you are satisfied with being anything less than the best in your sport,” says Kevin Magnussen calmly, as if it's the most natural thing in the world.
As most will know, it is a goal he has not achieved. For seven years, from 2014, he raced in Formula 1 for McLaren, Renault, and Haas. In 2020, he left Formula 1, and it is unlikely he will return.
"It has been difficult. The goal of becoming world champion was deeply ingrained in me. The success of getting into Formula 1 was not success for me. I even think that holding on to my overall goal of becoming world champion pushed me to get into Formula 1 in the first place. But when you decide to stop, you have to be able to say you did your best. When you look back, it’s about whether you can still be satisfied,” says Kevin Magnussen.
He also shares some experiences that he now looks back on with pleasure. Among them, the first race in Melbourne, where he finished 3rd and even 2nd after a disqualification. Kevin doesn't often look back at his experiences - he looks forward. His new goal is to win the 24-hour race at Le Mans next year with the Peugeot team he will race for.
Unofficial leader
Racing may look lonely. A driver behind the wheel. However, within a professional motorsport team, hundreds of employees work to make the car perform optimally. The reality for a driver is that they are completely dependent on the team and the car.
“The car carries a large part of the responsibility for performance. That element is everywhere in motorsport, even though the cars are the same. There will always be a possibility to set the car up in different ways,” he says.
That’s why, according to Kevin Magnussen, it is important to create a culture in the team where engineers are not afraid to give their opinions and try good ideas.
“As a driver, you have an indirect leadership role. You can make a huge difference in motivating the team. You are the one responsible for the end result. When you are dissatisfied - and show it, it spreads to the team and they lose trust. If there’s a technician who made a mistake and you go directly to them in front of everyone and rub their face in it, the others might think: I just need to be careful with what I do. Then you create fear in the team,” says Kevin Magnussen.
He also doesn’t spend much time blaming the car or other teammates for lack of results.
“You need to be critical enough to say: it’s possible that the way I’m driving is causing the problem. Should we try to solve it through the setup and design of the car, or should I just adapt? It’s good to be honest with yourself.”
Not an engineer
On race day, the driver is in charge. It’s no longer possible to make fundamental changes to the car. The driver, and the whole team, work to achieve the perfect balance in the car. The balance that suits the driver best during the race. It’s a dance between the large amounts of data collected by sensors in the car and Kevin Magnussen’s feeling for the car.
“You have team members who analyze the multitude of data and look at what theoretically can improve performance. And then there’s the driver’s feeling - a balance has to be found here. The driver’s gut feeling weighs the most. During a race weekend, it’s mainly about the drivers having a good feeling with the car and that the balance is roughly what they need. The car is improved between races, and that’s where the technicians really have to perform. They need to address and improve the weaknesses in the car,” he says.
After a race, Kevin Magnussen provides structured feedback.
“I have lists of things that ensure I get feedback on the brakes, the brake pedal, the steering, the grip on the steering, my seating position, the car’s ability to handle bumps. From A to Z. The more feedback you can give, the easier it is for the technicians to get to work. But it’s also important to focus on what’s most important,” he says about the report written after the races.
Hard to deal with pressure
The best footballers play about 50-60 games a year and train almost every day. This is not the case for a race car driver. Throughout Kevin Magnussen’s career, his season was decided between 10 and 15 race weekends with three test drives, one qualification, and one race. There’s virtually no training in the car between those weekends. In other words, every time Kevin Magnussen gets in the car, there is extreme pressure. Pressure that he doesn’t always handle well.
“If I had a bad start to the season, I would try to go much too fast and take too many risks to chase victory. I wanted it so badly! It meant so much to me that it affected my nerves and mood when things weren’t going well,” he says.
He has learned to focus by removing as many distractions as possible from his race weekends. This helps him get into his bubble.
“I enjoy it the most when I focus on performance. I really appreciate it when someone else handles all the practical things. There are a lot of meetings and matters during a weekend. If I have to deal with all these things, it takes away my focus. I feel like a diva saying this, but I just want to be in my bubble,” he says.
A warm bath
He uses his bubble to think about all the small and big things that can make a difference on race day. The car’s setup, the strategy, and his own driving behavior. It also helps him "feel the car," as he puts it. Kevin Magnussen is well aware that this might sound a bit abstract, but he compares his mindset to something very ordinary.
“I can imagine that people recognize this feeling when taking a warm bath. You don’t focus, you just sit and think. That’s how I often feel during a race weekend. There’s nothing I do to get into it, it’s just something that happens when I’m on the track,” he says.
He will use that focus next year with the Peugeot team during the World Sports Car Championships and try to win Le Mans.
What we learned from Kevin Magnussen
1. Build trust within the team: If you want to be a top performer, everyone in the team must dare to bring forward their best ideas. It requires creating an environment where it’s safe to make mistakes.
2. Provide structured feedback and let your talented people translate this into what needs to be done.
3. Remove distractions to get into the right focus (bubble) when you need to perform under pressure.
4. Be honest with yourself and actively look for areas where you can improve.
Kevin Magnussen: Look for your mistakes
“You need to look for your weaknesses. In other sports, it’s the movement that makes the difference. The feeling of a tennis racket or a golf club. I also think that football is becoming more data-driven, but certainly in motorsport, this will become even more important. You can do a lot to find your mistakes, but you have to be open to it. Excuses are easy to find, but you have to be critical enough to say: 'It’s possible that my driving style is causing this problem.’”
Kevin Magnussen in The Founder
MAN IN THE SHIRT “The honor goes to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust, sweat, and blood” - quote by Theodore Roosevelt in Paris, 1910. In the portrait series “Man in the Shirt,” BARONS meets businesspeople who have put themselves on the line. Where do they find courage? What’s the most important thing they’ve learned along the way? And what can we all learn from them?
