Magnussen enjoying life at straightforward Haas

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Kevin Magnussen says that he's enjoyed his first season at Haas F1 thanks to the 'simple' racing atmosphere at the team.

"Everyone here is here to go racing," Magnussen told ESPN this week. "We don't have to deal with people you don't want to deal with.

"It's kind of going racing in Formula 1 with an F3 team," he explained. "It's very straightforward.

"There's no one here that I don't really enjoy working with.

"You don't have to do stuff that doesn't have anything to do with racing. It's all racing and none of the other stuff.

"There's no bulls**t or any commercial stuff," he added. "It's very uncommercial, a real race team."

Magnussen made his Formula 1 début in 2014 with McLaren. He found himself without a drive the following year, but picked up a seat at Renault in 2016.

2017 review: Steady sophomore season for Haas

The 25-year-old then made the decision to move to Haas at the start of 2017. He'll stay with the team next year - the first time he's had year-to-year continuity in his Formula 1 career.

"I feel very at home, very happy," Magnussen replied when asked if he now felt settled in the American team. "It's nice to be in a team that's very simple."

The Dane said he relished the access he now had with the team's senior management, including team principal Guenther Steiner.

"You just go and speak to them," he said. "They're all there in the debriefing. They don't have to speak to any sponsors or anything, they're in the office with us. A part of everything.

"I really enjoy working as a team, as a whole," he added. "Not just working with the engineers and mechanics. It's really one team."

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.