Everybody knew Formula One would put Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel in the same pre-Austrian Grand Prix press conference following their confrontation in Azerbaijan. But they weren’t the only drivers asked to attend the morning presser.
Haas F1 Team’s Kevin Magnussen also sat in front of the international media Thursday, though he probably could have ducked out and the reporters would have been none the wiser. With Hamilton and Vettel fielding questions at the beginning of the session about their collision, and the FIA’s decision not to further penalize the latter, Magnussen was left twiddling his thumbs for quite some time — something he apparently knew would happen.
Haas likely knew he wouldn’t get much air time too, but if it didn’t, it quickly caught on.
The Dane initially did a good job hiding his boredom, but he only could put up a front for so long.
Just when Magnussen probably thought he had obtained the power of invisibility, though, the moderator acknowledged his presence.
He might have been the only one to do so, however, as some of the pictures from Thursday morning paint a clearer picture of just how little people cared about Magnussen’s presence.
Mercedes-AMG Petronas seemingly thought it was comical that the drivers on either side of Magnussen were receiving all the attention.
The 24-year-old clearly wasn’t upset about fulfilling his media requirements without actually doing anything, however, because he got in on the joke, too.
Although we admittedly were confused why F1 wanted anybody other than Hamilton and Vettel at the press conference, we think having a third pilot attend added some much needed comic relief. Especially given that neither driver said anything about their crash that they hadn’t already.
Thumbnail photo via Haas F1 Team
