Magnussen 'positive' after dramatic year at Haas: 'This gives you character'

Haas had high hopes for the 2023 season, but in the end, the year turned out to be a huge flop: the team with Nico Hulkenberg and Kevin Magnussen were the slowest on the grid, with 12 points. Haas finished last by a clear margin. But as the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche said: 'What doesn't kill you makes you stronger'. That is exactly how Magnussen looks back on the past year.

"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," the Dane told GPblog and others. "It's character building and it's strengthening. You get resilient. You build up resilience to hard times. 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."

It is common knowledge where Haas' problems were: regularly fast during qualifying, but in the races, the car didn't work as well. Moreover, tyre degradation was extremely high; not even a completely new concept - introduced in Austin during the US Grand Prix - could change that.

Magnussen was quick to raise the alarm

It is easy to imagine that as a driver, after so much hassle, you lose confidence at some point and become frustrated. "I think for me 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 earlier than many others because I drove that 19 car. Still even though the symptoms are the same."

But, Magnussen believes, "It's not a given that the cause is the same because it's a very different type of car, this one. It's a ground effect car that produces its downforce in a very different way to what we had in 19 so we can't really compare."