Kevin Magnussen completed more laps than any of his peers – 100 in total – on day one of the Young Drivers Test at Silverstone, and in the process topped the timing sheets at the end of the day in the McLaren MP4-28 after which the Dane claimed that he is ready for the ‘big time’.
“We have to see where we are, I feel ready for Formula 1,” told reporters at Silverstone. “I have a championship to do in World Series by Renault so I’m really focusing on that and when I’m finished in the championship I’ll see where I am.”
The 20 year old, son of former McLaren and Stewart F1 driver Jan Magnussen, has been racing since 2008 when he won the Danish Formula Ford Championship. Since then he has been steadily progressing up the junior ranks, up the well trodden ladder towards F1.
Magnussen revealed his objectives; “We have a plan that I should try to win [the World Series by Renault] championship this year and then hopefully get a chance in Formula 1 somewhere. We all know it’s not easy and you have to adapt to the circumstances and do the best you can all the time and see then where it takes you.”
Magnussen had his first F1 experience at the wheel of the McLaren MP4-27 at the 2012 Abu Dhabi Young Driver test. He set the quickest time during his stint, impressing the McLaren outfit who have him retained as a development driver.
The youngster was asked if he had improved between the two F1 experiences, “Yes [I have improved], because I’m working with the team also when I’m not testing, but I am being educated all the time. I learn more and more about the technical side of F1 and that’s very important thing when you’re testing.”
“You have to have knowledge about the car and that’s improving all the time, so of course I feel better this time than last time. That’s natural.”
Magnussen does duty for McLaren in their simulator and part of his programme at Silverstone is to optimise corrolation between the real world MP4-28 and the virtual world version.
“[Track time is] very important for correlation to the simulator and to improve the simulator. That’s also improving all the time and it’s important for the simulator drivers to feel what the real car is like and to compare with the sim.”
“Some things might have changed. I’m confident that we’re going in the right direction but you have to evaluate everything. You have to have a plan but you have to evaluate yourself all the time so we’ll see by the end of the year what chances I have and how we feel,” concluded Magnussen. (GP247)
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