After racing for most of the last several years in Formula 1 with the Haas F1 team, Kevin Magnussen will be a BMW M Motorsport driver in 2025 and will compete in the M Hybrid V8. The 32-year-old Magnussen spent seven years with Haas and has participated in 186 Formula 1 races between 2014-2024. His last race was on Sunday in the 2024 Formula 1 season finale in Abu Dhabi.
Magnussen is no stranger to sportscar racing. He’s the son of Jan Magnussen, who drove in the American Le Mans Series for Panoz in 1999-2000 and was a longtime factory driver for Corvette Racing, where he won championships in 2008 and 2013. Kevin has driven in IMSA before, as well. In 2021, in a year off from Formula 1, he drove for Ganassi Racing in a Cadillac in the DPi prototype category, where he scored one win and five podium finishes. The DPi class has evolved into today’s GTP class. Magnussen also drove an LMP2 prototype in the 2021 24 Hours of Le Mans.
Magnussen competed in the 2021 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship DPi class with Ganassi Racing.
BMW M Motorsport has yet to announce where Magnussen will race the M Hybrid V8, but we already know he’ll be racing in the Rolex 24 at Daytona in January. For the season-long program, it’s more likely that Magnussen will be in the FIA World Endurance Championship with BMW M Team WRT and not in IMSA with BMW M Team RLL, though we could potentially see him again at Sebring. The full driver lineups for both WRT and RLL have yet to be announced.
Magnussen is looking forward to getting back into sportscar endurance racing. “I am happy and proud to represent such an iconic motorsport brand as BMW in some of the world’s most legendary races,” he said. “After ten years in Formula 1, I am embarking on a new and exciting chapter, and I look forward to taking on the challenge in the most innovative and advanced sports cars in the history of endurance racing. A huge thank you to BMW M Motorsport for this fantastic opportunity. I can hardly wait to start the preparations and look forward to kicking off the 2025 season with the rest of the team.”
-David Haueter
[Photos courtesy BMW, LAT Images]