Magnussen playing the long game at Haas

Kevin Magnussen believes Haas is right to have low expectations for the start of the 2024 season, but is encouraged by its potential to improve through development as the year goes on.

Haas ended last year bottom of the constructors’ championship and the result played a key role in Guenther Steiner being replaced as team principal by Ayao Komatsu. The Japanese engineer has already stated he expects to be at the back of the grid in Bahrain but is targeting a stronger development plan than in the past – something Magnussen is on board with.

“I think expectations are being managed quite well this year,” Magnussen said. “I think some years there has been some unrealistic optimism going into seasons and I’ve been affected by it as well.

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“Certainly, Ayao is very clear that he doesn’t think we’ve moved out of last year’s position yet, but he’s clear in that he sees the development trajectory looking a lot stronger, so he’s actually optimistic that we can move forward through this year.

“The entire field is so close together and I think last year we completely ran into a wall in terms of development. We couldn’t really break that barrier until we shifted the concept, and this year is looking a lot better. Expectations are low to begin with but high for the season as a whole.”

Magnussen admits there’s a chance Haas doesn’t make any progress at the first race compared to where it ended 2023, as the team gets to grips with a new concept that was initially introduced last year.

“The update was more of an experiment last year." he said. "It’s hard to call it an update or upgrade because it wasn’t really upwards, it was just sideways, but it was a very good experiment in terms of committing to the concept of car that we have this year. I think we wanted to see the potential and characteristics on track with this concept of car and this year is in that direction.

“I hope we can take a step forward. We committed to this year’s car quite late in development, so we’ve had quite a short time to develop, and it’s actually been going quite well. Although I don’t think we can guarantee that it’s a step forward straightaway in Bahrain at the first race, I think the development looks more interesting, at least.”