Magnussen: I don't care what anyone thinks

Speaking to ESPN ahead of the Monaco Grand Prix weekend, Magnussen insisted, "I don't care what other drivers think of me. They can say what they want."

The Haas driver did himself no favours when he was quoted saying that he was prepared to die in a race car, then a week later he inexplicably turned into the path of Pierre Gasly and nearly caused a huge accident, prompting the Toro Rosso driver to label him the most dangerous driver on the grid.

Magnussen feels compelled to explain that which have been lost in translation, "If there's something like that where a story came out wrong, it depicted me as something that I didn't like and it was wrong -- completely wrong -- and it looked like I wanted to die in the car, which is crazy. But unless it's something like that, something which is incorrect, I don't care what anyone thinks."

"I focus on the team and I block out all the outside media stuff because it's so irrelevant and uncontrollable. There's so many different media on the internet, taking it from the big media and making their own little article out of that and changing it into something that it isn't."

"There's never one story from an interview, there's always so many different stories. Generally I stay out of it. I don't look at social media, I have some people who look after it so whenever I want to post anything I send it to those guys so I don't have to look at the apps."

"I feel like that's the only way to do it. It's all out of my control anyway, I find it so difficult to control what goes out into the media and how it goes out that it's better for me to just speak my mind on track and let them talk."

While criticism of his tactics are well documented, it is also fair to say that Magnussen is enjoying a good spate of form this season, his second year with Haas where he has settled in well, while delivering to the appreciation of the teammate while his struggling teammate Romain Grosjean has done the opposite.

Magnussen lies ninth in the championship with 19 points, his French teammate has yet to score.

"It's a nice environment to be in," Magnussen said of the American outfit. "You have a lot of trust from the team and some commitment that I haven't had before. That makes you more relaxed in your racing."

"I don't feel restricted, I feel like I'm free to explore limits and that's different to the other teams I've been. I felt too much under pressure at other teams, for different reasons, especially at McLaren. I feel in a really good place at this team, in my second year."

As for the future, he added, "I don't know what the expectation is or anything, but I'm happy where I am at the moment. You never know what's going to happen in the future but I feel very comfortable with my team and I feel like they appreciate the job that I do and I really appreciate the environment that we have here."

"Of course we also have a competitive car, so let's see... of course if I ever get a chance in a top team to fight for the championship then of course any driver with ambition wants to take that opportunity. Unless that happens, I'm pretty happy actually," insisted Magnussen.