24 Hours of Le Mans – Kevin Magnussen: “Continue that family legacy”
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24 Hours of Le Mans – Kevin Magnussen: “Continue that family legacy”

In the latest edition of WEC Talk, the official FIA WEC podcast, future Peugeot Sport driver Kevin Magnussen talks about the appeal of the 24 Hours of Le Mans and endurance racing.

After seven years of Formula One, 28-year-old Kevin Magnussen is competing in this season’s IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship with Chip Ganassi. For 2022, he has signed up to Peugeot Sport for the French team’s hotly awaited debut in Hypercar, the new top class in the FIA WEC and, of course, at the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

As he explained in the latest edition of WEC Talk, endurance is not unknown territory for him. He spent his childhood behind the scenes at racetracks all over the world, following his father Jan Magnussen, four-time class winner at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. “We’re all into motor racing in the Magnussen family. All my cousins, my siblings, my dad, my granddad, my uncles… every one has been racing at some point. It’s going to be great to be able to take those guys to the races as well and continue that legacy.”

During the podcast, Kevin Magnussen revealed how much he appreciates the team spirit in sportscar racing and how that differs from the dog-eat-dog world of Formula One.

He then went on to talk about his future WEC programme with Peugeot Sport. “The Peugeot programme starts at the end of this year, after my season in IMSA finishes. Ferrari announced their commitment to Hypercar yesterday. I think that it’s going to be a super exciting era of sportscars that we’re going into now, and I can’t wait to be a part of it. If I just imagine at Le Mans, there will be Peugeot, Toyota, Ferrari, Porsche and Audi racing against each other. That’s going to be awesome! And I’m sure that there’s going to be more joining as well. It’s really exciting. Public perception of endurance is hopefully going to change over the next few years when all these big manufacturers will join and I think it’s going to be a big party at Le Mans, for sure!”

The Dane also underlined the importance of endurance racing in his home country during the 1980s and ’90s. “We have had some good drivers in the past. I think there were about 50,000 people from Denmark at Le Mans some years. That’s 1% of the whole population of Denmark – it’s big!”

You can listen to the full WEC Talk interview with Kevin Magnussen either on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.

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