Magnussen honest about Haas' future as F1 strugglers switch to Red Bull concept

19 October 2023 , 10:00

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Kevin Magnussen is still smiling despite a difficult season for Haas (Image: HOCH ZWEI/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images)

Kevin Magnussen has no doubt his Haas team will live up to its full potential despite a difficult season so far.

With an experienced line-up of Magnussen and Nico Hulkenberg, Formula 1's American team has shown flashes of excellence. But they have been much too few and far between and points have been very difficult to come by with places in the top 10 at a premium for teams in the bottom half of the grid.

Qualifying results have, generally, been strong – which makes it all the more frustrating that converting good grid positions into points has been so difficult. "It's been a little bit up and down – too much up and down," Magnussen bristled as he sat down with in the summer.

The Dane is as relaxed in one-to-one conversation as he almost always comes across. He sits arms-open, with a slight warm smile despite talking about his disappointment over how few scoring opportunities have come his team's way in 2023.

He said: "We seem to always have a strong car on Saturday where we can do one great lap on new tyres and low fuel and we seem to be okay. But then in the race, when we have to do more laps, we're falling off the pace a little bit. That's what we need to solve.

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"You become impatient. It’s the nature of our issue that we are fast enough on Saturday so expectations always go up, and then coming into Sunday you have higher expectations – so it's harder to swallow when you have a bad result.

"But it is what it is. It's our job to turn it around and I feel like we have what it takes within the team – the resources, the support from our title sponsor MoneyGram and a lot of talented people in the team – to turn it around."

Of that Magnussen made it clear he has no doubt – he uttered slightly different variations of the same war cry on at least three occasions during our time together. Asked if he is certain that Haas is heading in the right direction despite the lack of tangible results, he replied instantly: "I really think so. The team is in a very good spot at the moment.

Guenther Steiner hopes his team can find pace with its new car concept (Getty Images)

"Great support from our sponsors MoneyGram is important and that's been a huge benefit to the team. It's been enabling the team to make that next step. Those things take time to be implemented and to show their faces on track in terms of results.

"But I feel we've already shown our hand a few times this year, shown what we can do. Unfortunately, many times it has been on a Saturday rather than Sunday, but I think the potential is really there and I'm looking forward to hopefully being a part of that.

"We've been in Q3 many times this year and that shows the potential of the car, but on a Sunday we lack the performance and we seem to fall off the pace a little bit. It doesn't take much then to fall all the way to the back because everyone is so close together. It's tough."

The fact Magnussen has already name-checked his team's title sponsor twice is no accident. Of course, it will keep MoneyGram very happy – but it is also an indicator of just how important that deal is to this team. For the first time since it entered F1, Haas has a budget big enough to actually have to worry about the budget cap.

At the time of our conversation, Haas sat seventh in the constructors' standings. Magnussen said it was the team's main target to hold on to that position and said it "would be a great achievement" if they manage to do so, but since then things have taken a worrying turn.

Haas have scored just one single point across the last eight race weekends. While other teams have found performance upgrades to help in their quest for top-10 finishes, Magnussen's team has been treading water as best it can until the huge car update which team boss Guenther Steiner hopes will turn their season around.

Finally, it is here. Haas head into their home race at the United States Grand Prix not only with a fancy one-off livery which could never be accused of being unpatriotic but with a completely overhauled car which takes significant inspiration from the design of Red Bull's RB19 which has blown away the competition this year.

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A CGI of Haas' special livery for the USGP (LAT Photo/Haas F1 Team)

"We changed the concept of the car because what we started with, because of the new regulations last year, we couldn't make any more gains performance-wise," he said. "Creating more downforce and less drag, it just wasn't there anymore, so we needed to change concept, to which is commonly known as the 'Red Bull concept' or the 'downwash concept'.

"It is a substantial update, and we're able to do this within the cost cap because we didn't have any updates at the beginning of the season because again, going back, we couldn't find any performance that we could make parts to put on the car."

Haas sit ninth in the constructors' standings, four points behind Alfa Romeo. Leapfrogging the Sauber team before the end of the year would at least see Steiner's outfit match their 2022 result, but that target of seventh place looks difficult to hit now with Williams 11 points ahead and Alex Albon in strong scoring form.

Daniel Moxon