#he’s just a normal guy

[magnusstan]

Kevin and Nico in the NY Times …

Kev on thinking he has time to be a Dad, getting called back to F1, priorities shifting, Laura liking the car, being torn about his kids being on socials and being neighbours with most of his family when they bought a house in his hometown …

BAHRAIN, BAHRAIN - MARCH 1: Kevin Magnussen of Denmark and Haas F1, wife Louise Gjorup and their daughters in the paddock during qualifying ahead of the F1 Grand Prix of Bahrain. (Photo by Kym Illman/Getty Images)

By Madeline Coleman

Jun 15, 2024

Just behind the Formula One teams’ motorhomes inside the Monaco Grand Prix paddock, fans leaned over a fence, trying to catch a glimpse of their favorite driver. As various drivers passed by, they inevitably missed some fans’ requests for selfies and autographs.

But Laura Magnussen wasn’t going to allow that to happen.

The three-year-old pushed her red scooter down the road behind a Haas team member and her father, Kevin Magnussen. When she realized he missed a fan’s autograph request, Laura scooted up to Kevin and tugged at his shirt, grabbing his attention and pointing at the fan. Kevin backtracked and signed the notebook, Laura pushing her scooter behind him.

It was just the latest of many moments featuring one of Magnussen’s two daughters to go viral on social media. Although plenty of team personnel, track employees and media members have families back home, Magnussen, teammate Nico Hülkenberg and Red Bull’s Sergio Pérez are the only parents on the grid.

Motorsports are ruthless and dangerous, a cutthroat sport where every millisecond and millimeter count. As elite athletes like F1 drivers rise to the top of their respective sports, the focus largely is centered on them.

That is until a little one comes along, radically changing how the adults approach life.

“It changed a lot of my priorities, like my perspective on life and my career and sport, and made everything else seem less important,” Magnussen said. “There’s always pressure on the drivers and also a bit of an anxiety where you think, ‘If I can’t be racing, then what am I? What do I do with my life?’

“Whereas now, that side of it is all settled in a way. I know if I’m not racing, then I have a fantastic life anyway.”

Magnussen didn’t initially intend to have kids while racing in F1.

He joined the grid full-time in 2014 but lost his seat to Fernando Alonso a year later. Magnussen found a full-time seat for 2016 and was out of a seat again after the 2020 season. He moved on to the lower profile world of IMSA. Rather than traveling the globe and competing during 20-plus weekends a year, he raced in sports cars in North America at places like Belle Isle in Michigan and Watkins Glen in New York. He competed in nine races that season and had no marketing or simulator duties, he said.

“I thought (the) timing was perfect because I finished my Formula One career, I thought, and it was the right moment,” Magnussen said. “We had a fantastic year. The next two years were fantastic, too, but in a much different way than I expected it to be.”

In January 2021, shortly before Magnussen flew to the U.S. for IMSA, he and Louise Gjørup Magnussen welcomed Laura into the world, born seven weeks early.

Hülkenberg was in a similar position when he and his wife, Eglė Ruškytė-Hülkenberg, had their daughter, Noemi Sky. “I was kind of a little bit out of the hot seat, and I had more time. Life was a bit more relaxed,” he said.

“My wife said I was always in a good mood because I didn’t have the bad days of the race weekend. You cut out the bad days, and you’re always kind of happy and balanced and well because we take this pretty seriously, this job, and if we have a bad weekend, it can tend to take up to a week to digest it, and obviously it impacts your mood.”

But when he returned to the grid full-time in 2023 with Haas, Hülkenberg said being a father didn’t change his approach, just that his life now revolved more around his family, as well as racing.

“I think racing drivers, the way we are wired, when you get in the car and when you put the helmet on the visor down, you forget all that. You don’t really think about it, and it’s just a blank mind,” he said. “You’re solely focused on performance and getting the best possible result. So no, I don’t think it’s changed my approach in the car. But outside, it takes a lot of focus and time being a dad.”

Sporting bright pink headphones and an all white outfit, Noemi Sky beamed as Nico and Eglė walked through the Monaco paddock, swinging their daughter in the air. On her feet were a pair of decorated shoes in honor of her father, one reading “Go Daddy” and the number two, and the other “Noemi Sky” and the number seven. (Her name came from both parents: Hülkenberg liked Noemi after seeing it in movie credits on a flight with his wife, while Eglė really liked Sky).

Bringing kids trackside takes a lot of planning, Hülkenberg said. Their schedules need to be factored in, like how to squeeze in naps at a noisy track. He added, “If you’re away from home and you have the hotel and it’s far away from the circuit, you really have to make sure you have all the toys and the iPad or whatever to get through the day.”

MONTE-CARLO, MONACO - MAY 25: Haas F1 driver Nico Hulkenberg is accompanied by his wife Egle and daughter Noemi during previews ahead of the F1 Grand Prix of Monaco. (Kym Illman/Getty Images)

Nico Hülkenberg said being a father didn’t change his racing approach, just that his life now revolved more around his family, as well as racing.

Magnussen finds it both “fantastic” and “frustrating because I’m too busy to really spend a lot of time with them. My kids think they’re on holiday.” Anges is nearly one year old and has visited the paddock before. Laura now understands that her father is racing, which is something she looks forward to, he said.

“She loves being in the garage and watching the car and all that. But still, she gets frustrated that I’m not available for the whole weekend. She wants to swim in the pool, and she wants to explore the place that we’ve come to, and I can’t do that. I’m just too busy.”

Magnussen says his oldest daughter isn’t intimidated by the loud sounds that come with the sport, and when she is in the garage, she wants to be close to the car. “She loves it, I think, because she knows that this is what daddy does, and she can be proud of the world that I go into every time I leave them alone.”

Over the past few years, Laura’s become a recognizable figure in the paddock, often going viral on social media, like when she helped her father prepare in Abu Dhabi last year. With her headset on, she helped Magnussen out on his gloves and closed his visor.

Magnussen’s social media accounts are run by his team, but his wife shows him the content of their daughters when it pops up. “It’s something that I feel divided about,” the Dane said.

“Laura doesn’t understand that millions of people are watching this and she didn’t consent to that. Also I feel like it’s a lot of people. Laura has been recognized, and I feel like she didn’t ask for that. I don’t feel too good about it,” Magnussen continued. “But at the same time, I think these videos are super cute, and these moments that we have had in the garage, they’re very special. And I treasure those videos because it’s awesome that we got to have this to keep and look at years to come.”

They try to balance the chaotic life of an F1 family, building some normalcy and making the kids happy. Magnussen pointed out how the number one thing in life is having real relationships and friends, not the jet-setting lifestyle.

BAHRAIN, BAHRAIN - MARCH 2: Kevin Magnussen of Denmark and Haas F1 walks through the paddock with his daughter during the F1 Grand Prix of Bahrain. (Kym Illman/Getty Images)

“Whatever you think is important before you’re a parent,” Magnussen said, “don’t worry about it. It’s not.”

“Me and my wife bought a house in a normal neighborhood with normal people close to our family. My wife’s parents, they live one house next to us, and my dad’s house is also on the same street,” Magnussen said. “Just around the corner, my mom’s house is also 100 meters away. My best friend is 50 meters. So we’re all within a radius of 100 meters, and I treasure that a lot.”

Even in a glitzy and glamorous world like F1, the simple moments in life may mean the most to the drivers, like flying home early to see their family or playing with their child after a difficult weekend. “It’s really nice when you have a bad weekend or a bad day and you go home and you take her and you play with her and she smiles at you,” Hülkenberg said. “It helps to forget the day, and it makes you feel better in that moment.”

When it comes to being a parent, the drivers’ priorities are the same as those of the everyday fan. It’s wanting to protect and be there for their child, providing a life that’ll make them happy. Priorities shift fairly heavily in the new chapter, putting life in a different perspective despite competing in a pressure-cooker-eseque environment.

“Whatever you think is important before you’re a parent,” Magnussen said, “don’t worry about it. It’s not.”

[magpiedraws]

Jon he's really trying here cut him a break

(tumblr crunched the resolution of this comic a lot rip)

[mearchy]

The best fics are the ones that recognize that although Luke Skywalker may APPEAR on the outside to be a normal friendly twink who happens to have cool powers, especially when contrasted with such ship partners as Boba or Din or even Han, he is arguably the scariest person alive in the galaxy around the prequel era. AND, crucially, he is also a fundamentally weird guy. This man was homeschooled on a rural farm his entire life and then apprenticed to a swamp gremlin who showed him how to tap into the cosmic power of the universe. He blew up the death star age 19, killing approx 2 million-ish Imperials. He is a vortex of Force power that can communicate with the ghosts of dead Jedi. He’s staring into the distance and mumbling to himself and doing Yoda aphorisms and casually pulling out the “yeah I could crush that guy into a paste with my mind (:” and nobody around him knows what to do with that. I think he is a character who has very little frame of reference for how a Jedi or a person in general is supposed to act and there is some thing about him that is by necessity really fucking weird and a little scary but he’s so nice that it can throw you off the scent a little bit. Thanks for coming to my TED talk

[wasyago]

RECKS ETHO IS HERE WOOOO !!!!!!!!!!!!!

( etho's design changed slightly over time, but this is the current version. just a heads up because i will eventually post older drawings where he looks a bit different )

[emacrow]

Um.. Superman.. what that thing stuck on your cape?

Clark's brain short circuit for a moment as he just got back of flying at great speed in the middle of deep space to thrown one of Lex's giants bombs destroy the city and come back in record time.

He turn a bit to look at his cape to see a tiny humanoid starlight dust covered child with white hair, glowing full green that look like white specks stars were implanted themselves into his big ol eyes, nawing on a handful of stardust with inhumanly sharp itsy bitsy fangs.

A small yet floating crown that look similar to one of Nasa pictures of far out space.

Did he just accidentally abducted an royal alien child/teen?

[equestriagirl16]

YALL IM-

IM LIGHTHEADED IM LIGHTHEADED IM LIGHTHEADED-

Btw his song from my playlist is Defying Gravity by Matt Copley I don’t make the rules💖

[koipepo]

That omake of little Kabru not being able to show off his howetown sweets because of Misril gets to me a lot so...

Here's a happier Kabru (and Lairu)

[taffywabbit]

i have lots of flaws but i do at least take a fair amount of comfort knowing that, if i were a customer NPC in a fast food/retail management game, i would be one of the chill early-level ones that can wait a super long time before they start getting impatient, and you breathe a sigh of a relief when you see them show up in a harder level

[toothpastewolf]

shitty little doodle of a shitty little guy

[themetalhiro]

My greatest battle as of recent

[buggachat]

being a supportive partner is hard

[saintaviator]

something something gman tommy something something gordon in stasis. you know how it is.

[ruporas]

being a little petty (ID in alt)

[wyvernity]

been thinking about the sinnohtrio lately......plus misc other stuff

also, casual ko-fi drop!! get something in this sketchy style starting at $10 woop woop

[denkies]

[monhiio]

Da-ge those look real heavy can I hold them for you??