Kevin Magnussen can believe the situation he is in at Haas F1 team ahead of the season-opening race in Bahrain on Sunday.
Haas announced Kevin Magnussen as their replacement for their Russian driver Nikita Mazepin last week. The Danish driver proved his potential by setting the tenth fastest time in Fp2 on Friday.
His teammate Mick Schumacher logged the eighth fastest time as Haas looks strong going ahead into the 2022 season. Asked if he was surprised by the team, Magnussen said, “I can’t believe what is even going on. It is so cool man, surreal. So I feel very lucky.”
The Haas driver said that he was encouraged by the long run of the Haas as the car felt good all day like last week.
“It was so consistent today, lap times were really strong, and I’m still super excited.”@KevinMagnussen reacts to his first Friday back with #HaasF1 #BahrainGP pic.twitter.com/0CusqClGph
— Haas F1 Team (@HaasF1Team) March 18, 2022
“In FP1 we were focusing a little more on race setup and race feeling, and we weren’t trying to set a lap time.
“In FP2 we did a quali sim, still not fully going for it, but more like a quali sim and that looked better on the times.
“But I think the long run was what I was really encouraged by. The car just felt so consistent and lap times were really strong.”
Also Read: Watch Lewis Hamilton struggling with porpoising in his Mercedes W13 during Bahrain GP FP2
Kevin Magnussen feels that it is a good start
Furthermore, Magnussen agreed that it is difficult to understand how the rivals are going to perform at the moment.
“At this point I still feel like I don’t know where people are, especially when you look at long-run pace,” he said.
“It is very up and down, even between team-mates, so let’s see. So far we are feeling good and we are happy and with a good car. So I am excited for tomorrow.”
Asked if he felt Haas was back to its best days, he said: “I really hope so, and so far it looks like it. But I have enough experience in this sport to know that you can’t feel sure of it until the season is over, basically.
“But it certainly has been a good start so far. We’ve only done two practices so far so we’ll see how it goes for the rest of the weekend, but it has been a good start.”
