Awesome KMag interview from January that I missed. It’s just More of him talking how much he likes flying around the world and hanging with the other BMW boys.
The full interview is here and includes some more carfucker quotes (to no one surprise).
i miss kmag so fucking much. that guy would show up, swear in the press conference, call someone a fucking idiot, be gay for nico, cause collision in p16, gift us a red flag then collect a penalty point, be cute with his daughter and leave
“I always got all my friends together in the house, and we did like this slumber party kind of thing. We would just watch the whole race, and we would stay up at night because we all had friends racing in the race, and my dad and everything. Last year was my first time racing in Le Mans with BMW, and I was like, ‘Damn,’ that I couldn’t watch the race like I usually do with all my friends.”
How to watch WEC, according to Kevin Magnussen: ‘Put the barbecue on’ - NY Times
Kevin Magnussen of BMW M Team WRT signs autographs for fans in Piazza Mattotti before the World Endurance Championship 6 Hours of Imola at Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari on April 16, 2026 in Imola, Italy Sam Bagnall / Getty Images
By Madeline Coleman
May 8, 2026
Formula 1 is on another two-plus-week break until the Canadian Grand Prix (though this was how the original 2026 calendar was designed). But if you’re missing racing action, there are a few different categories running that feature some familiar names, like the World Endurance Championship.
WEC focuses on long-distance sports car racing and is the top tier for endurance racing. Races last between six and 24 hours and feature iconic tracks and competitions, such as the 24 Hours of Le Mans. To explain it succinctly, WEC features two main classes of cars, and multiple drivers will rotate piloting the vehicle. But given all the variables and action, it can be a bit confusing for a first-time viewer.
Kevin Magnussen, a former F1 driver who now competes for BMW in its hypercar lineup, recently sat down with The Athletic to explain how to watch WEC, covering what happens during a pit stop, the best times to watch, how to tell who is winning, and more.
How would you describe endurance racing to the single-seater type of race fan?
You can compare it to other sports that also have these two different disciplines. In cycling, you have some sprints. If you watch the Tour de France, some of the stages are the sprint. I’m not a cycling expert, but I know they have this sprint format and then they have these long stages. At the end of the day, it’s the same discipline that they’re cycling, but it’s a very different way of going racing.
You think much more long-term in endurance racing. In car racing, in our thing, you’re sharing the car with two other drivers, at Le Mans for the 24-hour race. At Daytona, it’s your four drivers per car sometimes. So that really changes how it feels to go racing. In Formula 1, you’re just on your own. You’re responsible. No one else can affect your driving. It’s just you.
Also, how you work with (the) team is very different in that regard. If you’re just alone, you have all the resources from the team for yourself, and you’re making all of the decisions. All the analysis is done on your driving. When you’re sharing the car the team is looking at not only you but everyone else. And also, when you set up the car, you have to make compromises for the other drivers to agree and for it to suit them and their driving style also.
I know there are different lengths of races. How long is a driver stint? And how can fans tell when a new driver is behind the wheel?
A stint is basically a full tank of fuel. You start the race with a full tank, and then you burn all the fuel. Once it’s done, you have to come in the pit and fill it up again. You can typically do just under an hour. It depends a little bit on the track. Some tracks, you’re holding full throttle for a long time around the lap. Like Spa-Francorchamps, which is also a Formula 1 track, we have full throttle for a long time so it burns the fuel quite quick. But typically around just under an hour.
Most times, we’ll do two stints, and then we’ll change. So you jump in the car, at the start of the race or whenever you jump in, and then you do your driving. You come in, fill up the tank, and you go again. Next time you stop, you change the driver also. For a 24-hour race, this will be a rotation that is going on three or four times during the race, and in a six-hour race, you go through it only once. You’re with three drivers. One starts the race, does two stints. One is doing the middle two, one is doing the final two, and that’s how it works.
You will see on the graphics on the television who’s driving the car. On the WEC — the World Endurance Championship — app, you can go onboard with your favorite driver or your favorite team. This is a really great app that people can download and follow. I highly recommend watching it on that. It’s like the Formula 1 app. It’s very similar.
If someone was watching WEC from home for the first time, how do you recommend they approach a race weekend?
It’s very different if you’re watching a six-hour race or a 24-hour race. For me, the six-hour race, when I wasn’t racing in WEC, I put the telly on. I watched the start, and it would just be running in the background on a Sunday. This would be a bit the same way as people are watching cycling, the Tour de France. It’s on, and then there are these highlights, where things are getting busy, and it gets exciting. And then for the end of the race, it’s always very exciting.
My thing about the Le Mans 24-hour race (is that) I always got all my friends together in the house, and we did like this slumber party kind of thing. We would just watch the whole race, and we would stay up at night because we all had friends racing in the race, and my dad and everything. Last year was my first time racing in Le Mans with BMW, and I was like, ‘Damn,’ that I couldn’t watch the race like I usually do with all my friends.
That’s the best way to do it — get a bunch of friends together and put the barbecue on and have some beers and enjoy a nice time.
WEC is very different from F1, particularly because it features different classes competing at the same time. Can you explain the key differences among the competing classes?
There are basically two types of race cars. We do have four categories, but it’s split into two types of race cars.
You have the GT cars, which are (street-legal) production cars that are modified into race cars. There’s a whole bunch of safety technology. There are a few differences in performance, different suspension, and aerodynamic features on these cars. But basically, they are cars taken off the production line and modified for the race track, whereas the other type is prototypes. This is what we’re racing in hypercar. These are specific prototype race cars made for the track. You can’t get these cars for the road, and so these are called prototypes.
So you have Grand Touring cars and prototypes. Within these two types, you have the GT3 and GT Pro, which are two categories inside the GT, and you have the hypercars and the LMP2s.
How can a fan know who is winning when you have all these types of cars racing at the same time?
It gets complicated. It’s more simple to watch a Formula 1 race because you know all of the cars are in the same category and there’s 22 of them and it makes sense. (For WEC), you need to go a little bit deeper into it, and the beauty of sports car racing is the diversity in the race cars. They all sound different, they all look different, they all drive different, and you have different levels of drivers.
In LMP2, the lower category of prototypes, you have amateur drivers. You have drivers that started racing five years ago, 10 years ago. So the level of driving in that category sometimes is very low and other times very high. In hypercar everyone is a pro. When we’re going through, us and hypercar drivers, then it’s very unpredictable and very volatile to go through. Because if you’re passing a pro driver, he’s very predictable in how he’s driving and everything. So he’s easier to pass in many ways than an amateur, because he’s a bit more unpredictable.
So this is why you get all this action. A Formula 1 race, often it can get boring and they’re just driving around. This will never happen in endurance racing. There’s always action. Something’s always going on.
Can you walk me through what happens in a pit stop?
In a Formula 1 pit stop, you have 12 people changing tires, and then you have two people lifting the car up and down. In WEC, I think it is the same for all the categories. You have four guys changing the tires, and then one driver helper, because you need a guy to help get in and out.
But in terms of changing tires, you have four guys instead of 12, and this makes a huge difference. So the tire change is much slower in hypercar or in sports car racing compared to Formula 1, but they have to do much more. They have to run around the car with a heavy tire, put it on, and fasten or loosen the nut. So a lot more is going on in a sports car pit stop, also, because the driver is often hopping in and out, and you have to do this before the fuel tank is full. Because as soon as the tank is full, the fuel guy — that’s another guy in the pit stop — he then pulls the nozzle and that’s when you can go.
This is how you can save time in a pit stop. You can’t be slower to change drivers than the fuel time, and you have to get all your seat belts and radio plugged in and get comfortable in the car and everything secured in 40 seconds, or less than 40 seconds.
What’s the easiest way for fans to be able to watch and understand endurance racing?
It’s important to understand that in endurance racing, you have the fuel as a factor in strategy, whereas in Formula 1, everyone is starting the race with a full tank and you don’t fuel. You finish the race with one tank. So this is a big factor in strategy, because if you put less fuel, you’re going quicker because you’re carrying less weight, so your pace will be faster, but then you’ll have to pit earlier.
WEC is showing the amount of energy, fuel, left in each car at times. You’ll see this percentage like a battery, like on your iPhone, where you can see how many percent of energy is left in each car. And you can do a little bit of calculation: Okay, a car can do 50 minutes in a full tank. If there’s 20 percent left of fuel, divide that, and you can say he needs to pit again, whereas this other car doesn’t. He can go on. So you can get an idea of what everyone is doing.
Considering how long endurance racing can be, when are the best times for fans to watch, stop watching, and then come back?
You have the start of the race, which at Le Mans is iconic. It’s such an iconic scene in sports. It’s one of the most legendary, and it’s worth watching the start. There’ll be a lot of action, because everyone’s eager to go, and all the drivers are hyped up. So sometimes, they take quite a lot of risk, even though there are 24 hours to go. So people get a little bit hard-headed and start taking some risks they shouldn’t be taking.
I’d say to watch it in the night when it goes from sunset into the night. That’s interesting. Everyone’s adjusting, and often, accidents happen in those times. And then, of course, the end of the race, where it all gets decided, is also very exciting.
It seems like the racing has a natural ebb and flow of chaos, and sometimes it can be a bit slow, possibly boring. Is that normal, or are we watching the sport wrong?
No, even for me, someone that is very enthusiastic, when I was watching, even if my dad were driving, the telly would be on. We would always get together for Le Mans, and we’ll be 10 guys lying around in the house and watching Le Mans, like, on and off, and having a party with Le Mans on the telly, and would just be watching it in the background.
As a driver, do y’all ever get a little bit bored with how long the race is? Or is it more of the adrenaline keeping you going the entire time?
No, I mean even if you’re in the car for, let’s say, three and a half hours, the time passes so quick. You get into this very focused place in your mind, and you forget to really think much. You don’t notice how long it takes. Three and a half hours, it’s a long time to be driving at full speed, like, as fast as you can. But time passes at a different pace when you’re in the car.
I never get bored.
How do y’all maintain your attention for the entire duration of the stint, especially with rapidly changing seats with another driver?
Because (in) sports car racing, there’s always action, so you’re very focused. It’s not hard to stay focused because you’re constantly forced into a deep focus because you need to pass all these cars all the time. The GT cars are much slower, so you’re going past them, and you need to do that in a fast and safe way. So you’re constantly very focused on how they’re behaving, and where you can pass. It never settles into a boring rhythm.
A Formula 1 race can be quite boring. Sometimes you get in a place where you know you’re not going to be able to pass the guy ahead, there’s going to be only one pit stop, and the guy behind, he’s also not going to pass. So then it’s just like, Okay, we have 74 laps to go. You’re just running around and trying not to make a mistake, and that can be tedious, whereas that never happens in sports car racing.
As a fan, how can you tell whether a car on track is having a rough day, considering the action and how many different races are happening at once?
You can see sometimes if the car is damaged. Especially in a long endurance race, 24 hours, sometimes it doesn’t make sense to put it in the garage and change whatever. You do a quick fix, and you continue driving with it. This will cost performance, and these guys will be having to overcome this lack of performance from the damage. This is a way to see if someone’s struggling.
And if someone’s more than a lap behind the leader, that’s also a challenge. Then you can hope for a safety car, which will then allow everyone who’s a lap behind to pass while the safety car is ongoing. But several laps down, it gets difficult.
I know that you grew up around the endurance world because of your dad, but what made you a fan of endurance racing?
The cars, first of all. Formula 1 cars are great. They’re the fastest in the world. Maybe not right now with the new ones, but it typically is. But the variety in the race cars at Le Mans has always been the fascinating part. When you go to Le Mans, and you see the fans there, they’re fans of the cars, whereas in Formula 1, it’s because they wear Mercedes or Red Bull or Ferrari or whatever merchandise. But they are much more driver-oriented, like they have a driver that they support. In endurance racing, it’s more the brands. It’s more you see a BMW fan or Ferrari fan or whatever fan, and they’re celebrating the cars.
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