Kevin Magnussen showed he’d matured on his return to Formula 1, says Haas team principal Guenther Steiner.
Following his points-scoring comeback in Bahrain, Magnussen’s form dipped around the middle of the season. But after changing race engineers he rebounded by scoring a shock pole position for the sprint race in Brazil.
Steiner said team’s first pole position in F1, achieved in a rain-affected session, was made possible by the effective combination of Magnussen and his latest race engineer, Mark Slade.
The pair previously worked together at Renault in 2016 and were reunited during the latter races of 2022. The returning driver began the year with race engineer Ed Regan, who then moved into an office-based role, and Dominic Haines served as an interim replacement before Slade took over.
Magnussen and Slade’s reunion quickly reaped rewards. A first points finish in eight races came at the United States Grand Prix, then Magnussen claimed his surprise pole three weeks later at Interlagos.
“I think the combination with Mark Slade, his race engineer, it’s coming together,” Steiner said. “They have got a good relationship and they trust each other, I would say. So Kevin just had to think about driving, nothing else.”
The strong communication and trust between engineer and driver was critical to Magnussen securing pole position during challenging weather conditions in Interlagos, said Steiner.
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“This lap was fantastic, but the whole qualifying, he always put the performance in each step: Q1, Q2, Q3,” lauded Steiner.
“And he believed what he was told, which tyres to use, and he could see in Q1 and Q2 we always picked the right tyre for him to go out there to be competitive.
“Then when it came to the money lap, he put it down there. There was another eight drivers who could have done the same thing because the distance between the rivals was not 10 minutes, it was seconds. So he just delivered when it was needed to.”
Magnussen said his surprise pole “really lifted everyone up” and showed the whole team that “anything is possible in this sport – although often it seems like it is impossible, it isn’t”.
That proved the final high point of Magnussen’s season. He dropped to eighth in the sprint race at Interlagos, still earning a point, but…
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