Haas F1 Team principal Guenther Steiner has praised Kevin Magnussen's more mature approach to Formula 1 since returning ot the grid at the start of 2022 season.
Magnussen originally drove for Haas for four seasons from 2017 until 2020 alongside Romain Grosjean, but the team dropped both men at the end of that season in favour of an all-rookie line-up for 2021.
One of them, Nikita Mazepin, left the team at the start of 2022 as a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and new FIA restrictions on Russian nationals competing in motorsport.
Just weeks before the start of the season, Steiner opted to recall Magnussen - and has been pleasantly surprised to see how much the Dane has matured during his year away from F1.
"When he came back in, he scored points [at the first race]. He had the team behind him," Steiner said, recalling Magnussen's impressive fifth place in the season opener at Bahrain.
He was in the top ten again in Saudi Arabia, and was also ninth in Imola, but then went through a lean spell until he secured eighth place in Austria in the summer.
"Then I would say, just after the summer break, he struggled a little bit and we don’t really know why," Steiner continued. “But then he came back, so it’s just a little bit that we need to get the ups and downs out of the team.
"I wouldn’t say only of Kevin, you know. We need to analyse why we have so many ups and downs, and we did some of this job.
"You always have got a bad event or something, but we just need to stabilise everything," he added. "Hopefully next year we can come back more stable, you know, that you have got a good performance most of the time."
Steiner had no doubt that Magnussen had benefitted from being away from F1 for a year, and has been further boosted by Mark Slade becoming his race engineer. The highpoint of the season was a shock maiden pole for the Brazil sprint race.
"He’s just matured, you know, by getting older," he suggested. "We all get calmer and see things sometimes a little bit differently.
“He’s most of the time very relaxed about things, and now with the combination of Mark with him, I hope in the future we will see even a better Kevin.”
“For him as well, coming back to form. It’s a long schedule, a lot of races, but he now handles it well and I think I really look forward to next year.”
The mention of how much he now values maturity suggests that Steiner might be regretting last year's all-rookie experiment.
The second of last year's newcomers, Mick Schumacher, has also now been dropped by Steiner after too many costly accidents drained the team's budget.
Next year the team will field the very experienced Nico Hulkenberg instead, who has 181 race starts under his belt with Williams, Renault, Racing Point and Aston Martin, plus the 2015 Le Mans 24 Hours title.
"It’s one of those things: how much risk do you want to take to get a rookie in the car?" Steiner accepted.
Schumacher has argued that it is very difficult for rookies to make the step up from junior series to the pinnacle of F1 because of the lack of track testing time available, and Steiner was sympathetic to that.
“I think he’s right," Steiner said. “He jumped straight from F2 to F1 in competition, because there is no testing."
Next year will see former Formula 2 champion Oscar Piastri make the same transition at McLaren, and Steiner said the young Australian will face a similar challenge to establish himself fast enough.
“In racing two years is a pretty good time," he said of how long he expected the window of opportunity to remain open.
"In the end, nobody knows how good [Piastri] will be in an F1 car. He was very good in F3 and F2, but it’s still a big step."
Asked if he felt in hindsight whether it had been an error to recruit Mazepin and Schumacher when he did, Steiner was bullish with his response.
“No, no. Absolutely not. And I'll explain why,” he said. “Two years ago we were in a different position, and now we are in a different position again.
"We’re in a lot better position now in F1 in general than two years ago when we had to find solutions to keep on going.”
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