Guenther Steiner, Haas’ Team Principal was buoyed by the job Kevin Magnussen did upon his Formula 1 comeback, and expects him to be better in the future.
Magnussen was let go by Haas at the end of the 2020 season and spent the following year on the sidelines, but as the team broke ties with Russian driver Nikita Mazepin ahead of the 2022 season, the Dane was called in for a last minute comeback, and boy did he make use of it.
Magnussen qualified seventh for his first race in Bahrain, and finished the Grand Prix fifth, and went on to score points for the team on four other occasions, while the highlight of his 2022 campaign remains his maiden career pole position at the 2022 Sao Paulo Grand Prix.
Reflecting on his driver’s comeback season Guenther Steiner said, quoted by F1’s official website: “I think when he came back in, he scored points [at the first race], he had the team behind him. Then I would say, just after the summer break, he struggled a little bit and we don’t really know why.
“But then he came back, so it’s just a little bit that we need to get the ups and downs out of the team. I wouldn’t say only of Kevin, you know. We need to analyse why we have so many ups and downs, and we did some of this job,” he added.
Magnussen came back more mature
“Hopefully next year we can come back more stable, you know, that you have got a good performance most of the time. You always have got a bad event or something, but we just need to stabilise everything,” the Italian insisted.
Steiner claimed that Magnussen needed some time to get used to the hectic F1 schedule, and hinted that having a new Race Engineer in the form of Mark Slade who came on board at the weekend in Singapore will bear more fruit in the future.
“For [Kevin], as well, coming back to form. It’s a long schedule, a lot of races, but he now handles it well, and I think I really look forward to next year,” Steiner said.
“I mean, he’s just matured, you know, by getting older. We all get calmer and see things sometimes a little bit differently,” the Haas boss added referring to Magnussen’s known hot headedness.
“He’s most of the time very relaxed about things, and now with the combination of Mark with him, I hope in the future we will see even a better Kevin,” Steiner concluded.
— Haas F1 Team (@HaasF1Team) December 18, 2022