Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race Results

Magnussen in talks with Renault, Manor

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Kevin Magnussen is in talks with both Renault and Manor over potential seats for the 2016 season.

The former McLaren driver has been without a team since he was dropped at the end of 2015, having been demoted from race driver to reserve at McLaren a year earlier. By the time the team confirmed Magnussen would not been retained, the majority of the seats on the grid had been taken.

With Renault's takeover of Lotus being dragged out over a number of months until it was completed in December, Romain Grosjean opted to leave the team for Haas, resulting in reserve driver Jolyon Palmer being promoted to a race seat alongside Pastor Maldonado. F1i understands Magnussen has been in talks with those at Enstone over the role, but will be keen for a clear progression plan after his recent experience at McLaren.

However, F1i has learned Magnussen also retains a chance of securing a race seat with Manor, which has yet to announce any of its drivers for 2016. The Dane's experience would be beneficial to the team which is expected to move further up the grid this year as a result of a new power unit deal with Mercedes and technical partnership with Williams.

Magnussen faces a lot of competition for a Manor seat, with Will Stevens and Alexander Rossi - who both drove for the team in 2015 - also in talks, while Rio Haryanto has been linked with a drive thanks to significant funding.

F1 has remained Magnussen's primary focus despite tests in both Porsche's LMP1 car and a Mercedes DTM car towards the end of last year.

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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.