Denmark

Magnussen's Pole and the Open Sandwich

Denmark has never hosted a World Championship race, but Danish drivers have raced since the 1970s, and its cooking turns rye bread, pork and herring into national pride.

Denmark has no World Championship Grand Prix of its own, so its place in the sport rests with a small group of drivers. Tom Belsø made the first Danish starts in our records, two of them in 1973 and 1974, with eighth his best finish. Jac Nellemann entered one race in 1976 but did not start.

Kevin Magnussen, born in Roskilde, is by far the most experienced Dane, with 185 starts across ten seasons between 2014 and 2024. His best finish was second, and he took pole position at the 2022 São Paulo Grand Prix. Jan Magnussen, also from Roskilde, made 24 starts between 1995 and 1998 with sixth his best result, so between them the two give one Danish town more than 200 Grand Prix starts. Nicolas Kiesa of Copenhagen started five races in 2003.

Danish cooking grew from the produce of the country's farms and was refined in the late nineteenth century as new techniques and goods arrived. Spices have been part of it since the Middle Ages, among them nutmeg, cardamom, cinnamon and black pepper. Since the early 2000s, chefs have built a new Danish cuisine on high quality local produce, and it has won international acclaim and Michelin stars, a long way in every sense from the farmyard where it began.

Lunch belongs to smørrebrød: dense rye bread, buttered and laid with toppings that run from liver pâté with bacon to smoked eel with scrambled egg. Hot meals usually center on meat or fish. Frikadeller, pan fried meatballs of pork or of veal and pork, are a household staple, and in 2014 Danes voted for their national dish: stegt flæsk med persillesovs, pork belly fried and served with parsley sauce and potatoes. Herring appears fried, pickled or smoked, and roast pork with crackling stands among the most substantial dishes on the table.

A taste of Denmark

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