Kevin Magnussen remains steadfast in his support of Haas despite the team's challenging 2023 season and won’t criticize the US outfit as he feels that “we’re all responsible” for its travails.
Haas concluded its campaign tenth in Formula 1’s Constructors standings.
Despite occasional standout performances in qualifying by Magnussen and teammate Nico Hulkenberg, the team’s track record on race day remained depressed, primarily due to the chronic tyre degradation issues impacting Haas’ VF-23 design car.
An attempt to revitalize the team's performance was made with the introduction of a new aerodynamic package during the US Grand Prix in Austin.
Unfortunately, the anticipated improvement in the team's form did not materialize.
For the final two races, the team split their drivers' strategies, with Magnussen continuing with the new package and Hulkenberg reverting to the original design.
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In the German driver’s view, Haas’ update in Austin came “out of necessity” after its race pace problems continued to grow. But Hulkenberg admits that poor correlation was clear from the outset.
“We have to be honest with ourselves and admit that it doesn’t meet our standards when we do so much work to rebuild the car and then the end result is almost the same,” he said.
“The upgrade came a bit out of necessity. We had a modification to the underbody in Miami, but it was nothing major,” he said.
“Then nothing happened for a long time. The Sunday problems got bigger and bigger. The pressure on the engineers also increased, and that’s how this B version came about.
“Also, of course, because you could see that all the good cars had switched to the Red Bull philosophy, including Ferrari. It made sense to jump on this bandwagon too.
“We did it, but in my opinion, we didn’t understand it. Even in the wind tunnel it was clear that the values were not improving.
“The hope was that we could get rid of these so-called “delta-to-map” problems. But there are still huge discrepancies between what the wind tunnel promises and what the racetrack delivers.”
Contrary to his colleague, Magnussen preferred to keep his criticism of his team’s work under wraps.
"I don't think it helps the team to sell them cheap to you guys,” said the Dane.
"I think it's a team sport. We're all involved. We're all responsible, and I don't want to stand here like some holy cow, I'm a part of this problem if you want I guess, as is every team member in Haas.
"And we need to stick together and come back like we have done in the past. This team has shown great potential for a long time, and it's about time we hit our marks on a consistent basis, because I think the talent and the potential in this team is very big.
"So I want to be there to push it forward and show what we can do."
Magnussen says his past experience with Haas led him to question early on the efficiency of Haas’ 2023 contender as he felt a sense of ‘déjà vu’ when the car was rolled out.
"Particularly because I was here in 2019 with the team, when we were in a very similar position, I probably sounded the alarm bell a little early,” he said. “Earlier than many others, because I drove that '19 car.
“But still even though the symptoms are the same, it's not a given that the cause is the same because it's a very different type of car, this ground effect car that produces its downforce in a very different way to what we had in '19. So we can't really compare."
Magnussen acknowledged that the team’s struggles delivered their fair share of learnings once again.
"I guess as always, there's many things that you learn when it's this tough, that you wouldn't have learned if it was smooth sailing,” said the F1 veteran.
“It's character-building, and it's strengthening. You get resilient, we build up resilience to hard times. And it's not something I enjoy, I haven't enjoyed this year too much, but there's always another day to fight. And next year is another big opportunity for us."
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