“We’ve never been close”: Kevin Magnussen isn’t interested in befriending new Haas teammate Nico Hulkenberg

Kevin Magnussen made his F1 return at the start of the 2022 season, and he returned in some style. The Dane lost his seat at Haas at the end of the 2020 campaign and spent a year away from the sport. Despite that, he managed to finish P5 in his first race back.

Throughout the campaign, he put in consistently good performances, guiding Haas to multiple points finishes. However, his teammate Mick Schumacher did not fare quite as well. The young German struggled to match Magnussen’s pace and made many errors which led to big & expensive crashes.

At the end of the year, it was revealed that Schumacher won’t continue with Haas anymore. Nico Hulkenberg, who last raced full-time in 2019 was set to make a comeback to F1 and partner up with Magnussen. However, it was a very interesting appointment, owing to the strained relationship between the two drivers.

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Kevin Magnussen doesn’t have to be friends with Nico Hulkenberg

Back in the 2018 season, the animosity between Magnussen and Hulkenberg was at an all-time high. After an incident involving the two on track, Hulkenberg came to shake hands with the Haas driver, which he didn’t return.

Hulkenberg ended up calling him the most unsportsmanlike driver on the grid. Magnussen gave a shocking reply by saying, “S*ck my b*lls, mate!”

Since then, fans have assumed that the two drivers hate each other and there is an ongoing beef. This is why upon Hulkenberg’s arrival, fans wondered if the tensions between them will still be high. Magnussen addressed these speculations by simply stating that he doesn’t have to get close to his rival/teammate to help Haas succeed.

“We’ve never been close, in the past or anything,” he said as quoted by Autosport. “I don’t think you need to be best pals. I mean who knows, maybe we will become best pals, who knows! But there’s no pressure to build something away from the track.

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Magnussen insists he has no beef with Hulkenberg

Magnussen cleared the air regarding his current relationship with Hulkenberg. After revealing that they caught up with each other at the airport in Bahrain, he insisted that they don’t have any beef between them.

“In Bahrain, we met in the airport and kind of caught up for the first time,” he said. A lot of people think we have some beef going on, but we really don’t.”