Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsMcLaren

Magnussen admits McLaren expectations low

Kevin Magnussen admits McLaren’s expectations are “quite low” ahead of this weekend’s Australian Grand Prix.

McLaren was blighted by reliability issues throughout pre-season testing as it struggled with its new Honda power unit. Magnussen himself is also only driving due to a crash for Fernando Alonso during the second test, which saw the Spaniard hospitalised for three days and ruled out of the opening round of the season.

Asked how he would describe McLaren’s expectations ahead of the first race, Magnussen replied: “I would say quite low.

“We’re struggling obviously with reliability, making the car run for a long time. But this is a new start for McLaren, a new start in many ways and I think it’s going to take time. But I think it’s the right direction that the team has chosen to go and I think it has a bright future ahead. I think it’s going to take time but I’m sure they’ll get there.”

Having only completed 39 laps during one day of pre-season testing this year, Magnussen says he doesn’t think he’ll struggle to get up to speed.

“I didn’t get as many laps as I thought I’d get but I would get a maximum 150 laps in a day if everything runs perfectly. I got nearly 40 laps and I think all of those were low fuel, so at least I’m pretty prepared for that.

“I haven’t felt the car on high fuel yet so that will be interesting to see how that feels. But you know I’ve driven race cars before, it’s not a completely different thing. It's a different car but I think it should be OK.”

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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.