Born in Roskilde, Magnussen won the 1992 Formula Ford Festival at Brands Hatch. He then dominated the 1994 British Formula 3 championship with Paul Stewart Racing, winning fourteen of the eighteen events and breaking Ayrton Senna's F3 record. Magnussen scored his first British F3 win that April at Donington Park, also taking pole for the race. He won at Brands Hatch, twice at Silverstone, and at Thruxton, winning six of the first eight races. He then won again at Donington Park, and both season-ending rounds at Silverstone.
Magnussen made his Formula One debut at the 1995 Pacific Grand Prix in Aida, sitting in for Mika Häkkinen, who was unwell; becoming the first Danish to race in the category since Tom Belsø in 1974. In 1996, Magnussen drove in the CART series and International Touring Car Championship. For 1997–1998, Magnussen had a seat in Formula One with the newly founded Stewart Grand Prix team, owned in part by his old F3 boss Paul Stewart. Team founder Jackie Stewart once described him as "the most talented young driver to emerge since Ayrton Senna", but his performance was underwhelming. He scored his only championship point in his last race in F1, the 1998 Canadian Grand Prix; for the rest of the season he was replaced by Jos Verstappen. Magnussen started 24 GPs, one less than he entered, because his car was damaged in an accident during the start of the 1997 Brazilian Grand Prix causing him to retire before the restart.
Magnussen was still an active driver, competing in the Danish Touring Car Championship (DTC) until 2010 and in a Chevrolet Corvette C7.R in the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship with Antonio Garcia as teammate until 2019 – and in the 24 hours of Le Mans. He won the DTC in 2003 and 2008. In 2010, Magnussen participated in the GRAND-AM Rolex Sports Car Series season opener, the Rolex 24 at Daytona.
Magnussen's oldest son Kevin is also a racing driver currently competing in the FIA World Endurance Championship and IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship with BMW, having previously competed in Formula One with Haas, McLaren and Renault. Magnussen's nephew, Dennis Lind, and his youngest son, Luca, are also racing drivers.
This article is based solely on the provided corpus: a Wikipedia article about Jan Magnussen. No external sources were consulted, including primary archives, autobiographies, period programmes, or specialist publications.
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