Dane - who finished on the podium on his F1 debut - left in October
Tuesday 1 December 2015 14:23, UK
Ron Dennis has said that McLaren chose not to renew Kevin Magnussen’s contract because he failed to achieve goals the team had set him.
It was revealed in October that the Dane had left McLaren, with Magnussen himself revealing that he received confirmation of the decision in an email sent on his 23rd birthday.
After racing for McLaren in 2014, Magnussen was forced to stand down at the end of last year when Fernando Alonso joined the team alongside Jenson Button.
In the event, he stood in for Alonso after the Spaniard's pre-season testing crash forced him to miss the Australian GP - although Magnussen did not even start the race after his car's Honda engine failed.
Twelve months earlier, he finished second on his F1 debut in Melbourne - Magnussen remains the last McLaren driver to stand on a podium - and finished his rookie season 11th in the standings with 55 points.
That's less than half the total Button scored, but six more than the highly-rated Max Verstappen managed in his debut season for Toro Rosso.
"He was given every opportunity - a season in Formula 1 followed by very clear goals that he had to achieve in 2014, and he didn't achieve those goals," Dennis said.
"He knows himself and, no question, he knew that he didn't perform as he should have done this season."
Two seats, both at Manor, are currently available for 2016, although the feeling is that Magnussen - who has made no secret of his desire to race rather than be a reserve driver - will have to look outside F1.
He recently tested Porsche's Le Mans-winning 919 hybrid and is also having an outing in a Mercedes DTM car.
"He is a good, talented driver, more than capable of driving in Formula 1. But there are several drivers capable of driving in Formula 1, who for one reason or another don't get that opportunity," Dennis added.
"Both he and all drivers that come to McLaren and leave McLaren always get continuous support if they want to receive it. We don't walk away from our drivers and we're always supportive of our drivers.
"Some that have left under a little bit of a dark cloud - so there's the exception to the rule - but basically we do a great deal to bring young drivers on.
"We care. We take these young people and we pay for their careers: we paid for Kevin's career, we paid for Lewis [Hamilton]'s career; people forget we paid for [Nico] Rosberg's career in the early days."
Don't miss the F1 Midweek Report for analysis of the Abu Dhabi GP and all the latest F1 news. Former BAR boss David Richards and car designer Gary Anderson join Natalie Pinkham on Sky Sports F1 at 8:30pm on Wednesday.
