Kevin Magnussen believes Haas F1 Team on good weekends are easily the fourth best Formula 1 team in 2018 season but it needs to eliminate bad weekends and maintain the consistency.
The American outfit in only their third F1 season has made a remarkable turnaround as they find themselves in a genuine fight with the other midfield teams so early in their journey in the sport.
The team surprised many in the pre-season test and converted its form in the 2018 season even though it doesn’t have the points it should have collected so far -bad luck and some silly mistakes have cost them fortune in the fight for fourth.
While Romain Grosjean is yet to open his account, Magnussen has scored all the 27 points the team has as it sits sixth, only one behind Force India and 13 behind McLaren, while 35 apart from Renault in fourth place.
The Dane had good words for the work done so far this year, but stressed that the team still needs to work on its consistency as they have missed far too many points due to errors, especially the season opener in Australian Grand Prix.
“On a good weekend our car is good enough for fourth best team and I think what we have to do is eliminate those bad weekends,” said Magnussen. “When it’s good, it’s good enough for fourth and Renault are pretty far ahead in the points [than us].
“But [then] it’s still a pretty long season, but they seem to be very consistent and perhaps too consistent for us this year. But we will do our best. As we see at the moment, from fifth down to eighth it’s not that spread out, it’s very close, so hopefully we can fight for fifth.”
Leaving aside the results, in terms of the performance of the Haas, Magnussen felt that this year they have more of an all-round machine rather than a car which is fast in pockets depending on the circuits.
“This year we’ve got a good car and especially in terms of consistency from race to race it’s not only been good at one or two races this year,” he explained. “Last year our car was good here at this race [Austria] and it was good in Australia and it was OK in a few other races but then it was a very up and down and difficult to understand.
“This year we’ve got a car that is a little bit easier to work with, little bit easier to get to that top level and yeah, I think that’s the kind of consistency that we needed and we’ve got that this year.”
On a personal note, in his short F1 career, it is the first time that Magnussen has spent two consecutive seasons racing. When he started off in 2014, he had to set aside for Fernando Alonso in 2015. He did one year in Renault in 2016 after which he moved to Haas.
“In Formula One I haven’t had this good and competitive a car since my first year with McLaren,” he started. “It’s really good. It’s a lot more fun going racing when you know you have a car you know can fight for points and top fives on a good day.
“I’m enjoying it a lot. I think part of the reason… obviously, the car is better but this is my second year with Haas as well, and it’s the first time in my career, my whole career, even before Formula One that I’ve spent a second year in the same team.
“It’s a big advantage knowing everyone, and more so just having that experience together. So, y’know, every race when you go into the race preparing, you can look back at a race that you did with the same people, and almost the same car.
“There’s a lot of experience there in the second year that is a big advantage as well.” While the confirmation regarding his future is still not been made, but Magnussen sees no reason for him moving elsewhere in 2019.
“No news [on my future but] they [Haas] have an option on me and so I don’t think there is much chance of me going anywhere else but we’ll just take it as it comes, there’s no stress at the moment,” he said.
[Read Also: Magnussen surprised with McLaren’s form]