Kevin Magnussen says the new package had its positives even though old one was ‘quicker’ per se, which is what they have to work on.
While there was a notion that Magnussen wanted to run the old spec, the Dane seemingly clarified that he went for that as Haas wanted to run the experiment side-by-side to ascertain clearly what are the things that they can take away from both the specs.
He reckoned that one race was enough for the experiment but he did the second one for the team. “I think we’ve learned, it was good to get some track information from this type of car,” said Magnussen. “Although it wasn’t better, I think it was good that we ran the two cars next to each other for a couple of races.
“I would have liked maybe just one race for that, and then go back to the old one. But that logistically wasn’t possible. So I guess I took one for the team [in Abu Dhabi]. But happy to do that, and look forward to next year,” summed up Magnussen, who stated that it was expected that it won’t bring the huge step as they had already seen it in Las Vegas.
But since Magnussen managed to beat Nico Hulkenberg in Las Vegas qualifying and end up close in Abu Dhabi, he feels that the new spec does have some things that work. “It might be hard for you guys to believe, but we didn’t expect it to be better,” he said. “I’d be lying if I said I was hoping something unexpected would come from it. It didn’t.
“That was expected. We took a lot of learning. Both Nico and I got a good feeling about this concept of car. There were some interesting things, like the consistency of the front end, and with this setup, or with this concept, it’s got a lot less downforce. So the fact I could qualify ahead of him in Las Vegas, not that far from him in Abu Dhabi, with the amount of downforce we’re missing on that package, it shows some of the parts are good.
“So we can work with that, and hopefully take a big step next year,” summed up Magnussen, who clarified that the older car was simply ‘quicker’ to drive even if it was not 100% comfortable. On his side, he clearly felt better with the new spec but knew that there is not a huge difference, it is more on the comfort side.
“The feeling itself is better with the new one,” said Magnussen. “I’ve struggled with the old car all year. Me particularly, I’ve been struggling with it. Then I got onto this new car that helped me a lot. When both me and Nico were running it, I seemed to be happier with it than he was. He went back to the old spec, and I stuck with the new just to collect this data. That was it really. I guess it would have been slightly better with the old package, but more just for my ego than anything else.”
Here’s Nico Hulkenberg on updates needing to be better than being same
Here’s Guenther Steiner explaining on lack of updates
Here’s Guenther Steiner on CBS programme
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