Magnussen expects to improve in 2018

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Kevin Magnussen says that he and the Haas F1 team as a whole are targeting a big improvement in 2018.

Haas finished in eighth place in last year's constructors championship, only its second season in Formula 1. Magnussen himself was 14th in the drivers standings in his first year with the team.

The Dane said that he would be disappointed if both he and the team couldn't do better, and build on that performance in 2018.

"My expectations are that we will improve," the 25-year-old said this week. "We need to not only improve on ourselves, but improve further to our competition as well.

"It’ll be exciting to see if we’ve done that [at the end of the year]. I have a positive feeling.

"It’s my first time being with the same team for a second year in any series I’ve ever competed in," the former McLaren and Renault driver pointed out.

"It’s a nice feeling going into a second season knowing everyone and having influenced the car development.

“I think it looks good," he said when asked what he thought of the VF-18. "There are some nice new bits on the car."

Magnussen relocates from Denmark to Dubai

Magnussen will get his first chance to try the new car out this week in pre-season testing at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya. He'll be in action on Tuesday and Thursday, with team mate Romain Grosjean taking charge on the other days.

"I’m looking forward to it," he said. "[But] what you learn at Barcelona is not necessarily relevant for every track. Actually very few of the tracks."

Even so, Magnussen was clear about the team's objectives for this week's test.

"It’s the whole thing," he said. "If you have a fast car but it’s not reliable, you’re not going to have success. Likewise the other way: if it’s reliable but slow, that’s no good either. We need both."

Magnussen - who recently relocated from Denmark to Dubai - said that he'd enjoyed the winter break but was now keen to get back to work.

“I spent most of it in Denmark with friends and family. It was nice to see everyone after a long season being away all the time. Now I’m ready to go again."

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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.