Kevin Magnussen proved that Haas F1's lauded pre-season testing pace was no fluke, and very much the real deal.
The Dane put in a final lap of 1:23.187s in Saturday's qualifying session for the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne.
"The car was nice to drive in qualifying," Magnussen reported afterwards. "It was just there, and performing.
"I was able to push brake points – get off the brakes earlier and earlier with every lap," he said. "It wasn’t doing anything unexpected, which was really nice."
Magnussen's lap was the six-best time of the top ten pole shoot-out. He will advance another place on the grid for tomorrow's race thanks to a three-place penalty for Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo.
It's his best qualifying performance since 2014, when he won a brace of second row starts while driving for McLaren.
"I'm starting P5 on the grid, thanks to a few mistakes and errors from other people," Magnussen told Sky Sports F1, referring to Ricciardo and also to Valtteri Bottas crashing out in Q3. "One Mercedes and they Red Bull."
However, he is acutely aware that that means there will be faster cars starting behind him in a hurry to make up lost ground.
"We have some quick guys behind us, and we’ll have to do well to keep it that way. We’ll be doing all we can to get a good result.
"They're not going to be easy to keep behind. But even with them slipping in front, we're still going to be very happy with seventh or whatever we can get.
"If we can get points with both cars then that will be good," he added.
There was special satisfaction for Magnussen in qualifying ahead of the cars of his previous teams, Renault and McLaren.
"I'll be extremely happy if I can do it [finish ahead of them] tomorrow. I really want to beat those teams, no doubt about it. But it has to be done tomorrow."
2017 had also begun with a similar high for Haas, when team mate Romain Grosjean similarly started in the top six at Albert Park. However the team's form then unravelled over the course of the season.
"Of course be happy about today and satisfied, and do a good job tomorrow," he said. "But it's consistency during the year we need to focus on.
"Last year our weak point was consistency, because at some points we had a car - perhaps not at this level - but close.
"Even at this race last year, Romain was as strong as we are this weekend."
It means that a strong start to 2018 is especially important for Magnussen in his second year with Formula 1's youngest team.
"We need a solid start to the season and we need to capitalise on today’s qualifying result," he acknowledged.
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