Magnussen 'massively looking forward' to new era at Haas

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Kevin Magnussen is looking forward to starting work at his new team Haas F1 next week, with the unveiling of the squad's 2017 car scheduled for Sunday - the day before the start of the first four-day pre-season test at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.

"I’m just massively looking forward to getting back in the car," Magnussen confessed. "It’s been a long winter. You miss driving, even after a couple of weeks out.

"It’ll be nice just to get back in and get some laps, to get the feeling back and enjoy the car. Then, hopefully, I’ll get lots of running without too many interruptions so we can learn about the car and get as much data as possible.

“It’s pretty exciting for me now. I’m with a new team that I’m looking forward to starting to work with," added the Dane, clearly brimming with excitement at the prospect of a while new start for him within the sport, which introduces major tyre and downforce changes in 2017.

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"I feel excited about these new cars. Everyone is expecting them to be much faster and it looks like it will be a faster car than the previous generation, and perhaps even the fastest car we’ve ever seen in Formula One. That’s very exciting for me as a driver.

"Obviously, I’m just hoping we’ll have a very strong season together. The team did really well last year. They delivered a really strong season and this year we’ll try to make use of that experience gained by the team.

"I have a feeling that everyone on the team feels more prepared and ready for the season than at this point last year.”

The forthcoming season will be Haas's second in the sport, and Magnussen's third after stints at McLaren and Renault.

"I’ve been fairly lucky to have been in two teams where people have been very nice. It’s been easy, socially, to get along with everyone and feel part of the team. Everyone I’ve worked with in both teams, and at Haas, have been really nice people.

"I don’t know if that’s a general thing inside of Formula One, but it’s been great fun getting to know all these people. It’s been great to have experience from three great teams."

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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.