Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsRenault

Renault exceeds expectations of bruised Magnussen

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Kevin Magnussen admits his two days driving for Renault exceeded expectations but have left him bruised at the end of the first test.

While Jolyon Palmer hit reliability issues on the opening two days, Magnussen has managed to complete much higher mileage than his team-mate including over 150 laps on Thursday. Having watched the problems unfold at the start of the week Magnussen admits he wasn't expecting to have such a successful finish to the test.

“Yeah I would say when I started the week, seeing the problems on the first two days it was a bit concerning, I was worrying a bit if I would get as many laps as I wanted but I’ve certainly got that now," Magnussen said.

"It’s been a good couple of days I think. The main thing is just that I’ve got so many laps, it’s been perfect in terms of just getting back in to it and just pounding laps, it has been really good.”

And Magnussen is optimistic Renault can search for performance in the second test having completed so much work in the opening four days.

“Most of the stuff we have done so far has been checks, so we will start next week and we will work a bit more on the set-up and performance. That’s why the last couple of days have been good because we’ve got many of the checks done and we can have a bit more time for set-up stuff and performance.”

Having not driven an F1 car in anger for a year, Magnussen admits he has been left a little worse for wear by the workload in Barcelona.

“Yeah I would say I’m bruised, I’m very bruised. Normally around the shoulders you toughen up a bit and I’ve got massive bruises now. So just getting back in to it there’s always going to be stuff that you can’t really train for in the gym.

"actually my lower back has been a bit of a problem today. But then we changed the position a little bit and it helped. But I was able to do over 150 laps today without any driving for 11 months other than yesterday, so I think I’m fairly happy with the preparation I’ve done for that.”

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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.