F1 Notebook: Drivers Rally Around Kevin Magnussen After Suspension

There’s sympathy for Kevin Magnussen, a battle over the No. 12 car, and an F3 champion is crowned despite not winning a single race.

Autoweek presents its paddock notebook from Monza.

Sympathy for Suspended Magnussen

Kevin Magnussen’s rivals sympathized with the Dane’s predicament after he picked up penalty points at Monza that has led to his suspension from the next event.

Magnussen racked up 10 points across the opening six rounds, for a string of infractions, and at Monza was issued two points for colliding with Pierre Gasly. Magnussen’s total thus increased to 12, triggering an automatic one-round suspension, as per the penalty points system that has been in place for a decade.

Gasly called the incident “nothing” and added that Magnussen receiving a sanction for it was “very unfair,” adding that “it was a bit of wheel-to-wheel racing.”

Fernando Alonso commented that “penalty points, as we’ve discussed many times, should be for dangerous driving, something that is a danger for the sport and for the others,” something he felt Magnussen had not done.

New Drivers Play Numbers Game

Formula 1 drivers compete with personal race numbers but an atypical situation has developed, in that 2025 rookies Andrea Kimi Antonelli and Jack Doohan both drivers prefer to drive car No. 12.

Antonelli likes the number because of its association with Ayrton Senna, after the Brazilian sported it for his three-year stint at Lotus and 1988 title-winning campaign in the iconic McLaren MP4/4.

“I have many numbers that I like, but yeah, 12 is a special one, also because of an idol,” Antonelli said. “But yeah, I’ve been using it since F4, so it always went well with 12, so no reason to change it for next year.”

It is understood that Mercedes has lodged the necessary paperwork with the FIA before Alpine, meaning that it is expected Antonelli will get to use No. 12, with Doohan needing to search for another satisfactory number.

Fellow 2025 rookie Ollie Bearman will use No. 87 when he joins Haas; he used the number during karting, taking on from his amateur racing father, who ran No. 87 due to his birthday being on the eighth of the month, and his brother’s birthday being on the seventh.

Vowles Apologizes to Mick Schumacher

Williams boss James Vowles offered an apology to Mick Schumacher regarding the phraseology used to explain his choice not to hire the German for the remainder of the season.

Schumacher was an option to replace Logan Sargeant but Williams opted to promote from within its own academy, choosing Franco Colapinto.

During a media briefing on Friday Vowles explained that Schumacher “isn’t special” and said that “he would just have been good,” but realized he had erred with his words.

“I read the headlines afterwards,” Vowles told F1TV. “What really came across is me using the word ‘special’ in the context of Mick. I really want to clarify that. The word special, I used it in the context of multiple world champions like Ayrton Senna, Lewis [Hamilton] as well. Clearly that’s a foolish thing to do, because that’s the comparison.”

Monza Attendance Up

Monza recorded its highest official Italian Grand Prix attendance, with 335,000 spectators flocking to the historic Royal Parkland circuit through the course of the F1 Italian Grand Prix weekend.

There were also a throng of celebrities and sports stars present, with soccer icon Alessandro del Piero waving the checkered flag, while tennis ace Carlos Alcaraz—fresh from a shock defeat at the U.S. Open—was present as a guest of Alpine.

Kimi Räikkönen also made a rare appearance with his family, having broadly stayed away from the paddock since his retirement at the end of 2021, and his son Robin—who is already karting—met with a few of the current grid. His erstwhile Ferrari colleague Mattia Binotto was also back in the paddock in Sauber gear for the first time, following on from taking over at the helm of the team at the start of August.

It was also a better organized event than most years, facilitated by the upgrade to some of the infrastructure, most notably widened access tunnels and the introduction of a new tunnel which cleared bottlenecks that had plagued ingress and egress in past years.

Formula 2 Update: Bortoleto Goes Last to First

Gabriel Bortoleto kicked open the Formula 2 title race by surging from last to first in the Feature Race.

Bortoleto crashed out of qualifying, consigning him to the back of the grid for both races, and in the Sprint encounter he surged to eighth place—remarkably tying across the line with Dennis Hauger.

Bortoleto went even better in Sunday’s main encounter, making his sole pit stop at a fortuitous time as he cycled through to the lead when the Safety Car was deployed.

It means that McLaren-backed rookie Bortoleto, who won last year’s Formula 3 title, is now just 10.5 points behind Red Bull protégé Isack Hadjar, whose prospects were undone by a slow pit stop. Sauber junior Zane Maloney also remains in contention for the crown, 30 points behind Hadjar.

Three rounds remain in Formula 2, with the category joining Formula 1 at Grands Prix in Azerbaijan, Qatar and Abu Dhabi.

No Wins, But a Formula 3 Championship for Fornaroli

Leonardo Fornaroli clinched this year’s Formula 3 championship in astonishing fashion on Sunday, in one of the best finishes to a single-seater title battle for some time.

Fornaroli held fourth place on the final lap of a frantic race, with opponent Gabriele Mini second, which was enough for Mini to snatch away the crown. But Fornaroli pulled off a spectacular move on Christian Mansell into Parabolica on the final lap to secure the third place that he required, beating Alpine junior Mini to the crown by just two points.

Ultimately, that move was rendered moot because Mini was disqualified postrace for a technical infringement, but it took none of the shine off Fornaroli’s drive.

Even more remarkable was that Fornaroli won the title without winning a single of the 20 races all year, with his highest result being second place, as his points advantage was won through strong consistency, scoring points in 18 of the races, and not suffering a single retirement.

Fornaroli’s plans for 2025 have already been confirmed, as he will step up to Formula 2 with Invicta Racing, following in the footsteps of predecessor Bortoleto.