Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsRenault

Magnussen can lead Renault - Abiteboul

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Cyril Abiteboul says Kevin Magnussen's previous F1 experience makes him the likely team leader at Renault this season.

Renault is fielding an all-new driver line-up since taking over the Lotus team, with Magnussen replacing Pastor Maldonado alongside rookie Jolyon Palmer. While Palmer was part of the team in 2015 and made a number of FP1 appearances for Lotus, Abiteboul believes Magnussen is likely to take a lead role having raced for McLaren in 2014 and been reserve at the same team last year.

"I think we have a fantastic driver line up," Magnussen said. "They bring the energy of young people who want to make a point. Both drivers want to prove a lot, but they deserve to be in F1 and will gain in experience as we gain in experience.

"They have shown they are winners in their respective careers ; Jolyon has won GP2 and Kevin Formula Renault 3.5. Kevin is a natural talent and has sufficient experience to be a leader for the technical team and Jolyon will benefit from having a strong team-mate.

"They are both smart as well, which will aid us with the raft of changes we see this year, including the ban on radio communications between pit wall and car and the new qualifying format. I am pretty sure we have two quite clever and smart drivers who will respond to this new philosophy and I can’t wait to see it play out on track."

Magnussen enjoyed significantly higher mileage than Palmer during pre-season, completing 509 laps compared to 273 for his team-mate.

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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.