Magnussen targets improvements after 'difficult' year

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Haas driver Kevin Magnussen has admitted that this year's car has been difficult for him to get the most out of in 2017.

But he added that he now had a good sense of what he had to do next season to achieve a stronger performance alongside his team mate Romain Grosjean.

"I've realised what I need, but trying to get that from the car has been difficult this year," Magnussen told Motorsport.com.

"In qualifying, hopefully next year I'm going to be able to tune the car a little bit more towards a more stable car," he continued. "A less oversteering car.

"I don't prefer oversteer, especially on entry of the corners. This year we've been struggling with that a bit too much," he added. "It is a car that is a little bit tricky on entry. Attacking corners has been difficult

"Hopefully we can improve it and make it more towards my style," he said. "But there's no guarantee of that. So I'm simultaneously working on trying to deal with that."

Magnussen finished in the top ten in five races in 2017 and was 14th in the drivers championship. However his overall tally was nine points behind Grosjean, who had twice as many points finishes.

"[He] is a little better at dealing with a loose rear end," Magnussen admitted. "Romain is just very, very good with a car like that. Oversteering on entry doesn't really bother him.

Haas improvements for 2018 focused on aerodynamics - Steiner

"He handles it very well, and just nails it in qualifying like that," he suggested. "He might even prefer a car like this.

"For myself I'm pretty clear of what it is I need," the Danish driver said. "I'll just focus on that over the winter, and try and work with that from the beginning."

Helping him in that endeavour is the continuity of knowing he will be at Haas for a second year. It's the first time that he's enjoyed two consecutive seasons at the same time in his Formula 1 career.

"It's going to be interesting to start the season with a team where I know what it is I need, and work on it from the get go."

In the meantime, Magnussen needs no distractions away from his Formula 1 focus.

He's ruled out reports that he will join Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll in next month's Rolex 24 Hours at Daytona. Entering Le Mans later in the year is also no longer a possibility for him.

"There was some talks with a team," Magnussen told Danish newspaper BT. "But for a variety of reasons there is no deal. It will have to be another time.

"There's also no chance that I will do Le Mans this year," he added.

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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.