Magnussen: Haas growing 'faster than Force India'

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Kevin Magnussen believes that the Haas F1 Team is growing and improving at a faster pace than Force India did in its early days.

Force India was 'best of the rest' last season after the Big Three of Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull. The Dane cited the team as proof that small outfits like Haas still have a realistic chance to compete in Formula 1.

"Small teams can do well, Force India are showing that," he said.

Haas made its Formula 1 début at the start of the 2016 season and has been eighth in the constructors championship in both campaigns. It scored 29 points in its maiden season, and a total of 47 points last year.

Force India's first season in F1 was 2008. However, it didn't score any championship points until well into its sophomore season.

"If you look at Force India's first couple of seasons in Formula 1, as a new team we've raced and done better," Magnussen told Motorsport.com.

"So it's looking good," he added. "I think the team is going in the right direction."

Even more impressively, the Haas team is a brand new operation, set up in partnership with Ferrari. Force India was created from the assets of the former Jordan, Midland and Spyker teams.

Magnussen targets improvements after 'difficult' year

However in at least one important respect, Haas are still trailing their benchmark rivals.

Giancarlo Fisichella took Force India's first pole position in 2008 in Belgium. He went on to finish in second place in the race itself. By comparison Haas' best finish to date is Romain Grosjean's fifth place in the team's second outing, in Bahrain.

Since joining the team from Renault at the start of 2017, Magnussen's best result was seventh place in the wild Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

"I'm very confident we can go forward," he said, adding that he had no regrets about changing teams. His old team scored ten points more than Haas and finished two places ahead in the standings.

"Renault are doing well," he agreed. "But I just feel very good here.

"I feel that we can improve and take the fight to Renault next year if we get everything right."

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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.