“This is a fucking return of the Viking”. Gunther Steiner so he celebrated by charging Kevin Magnussen with buckshot, splendid fifth under the checkered flag in Bahrain in what was a Ferrari party with five out of six cars powered by the Maranello team finishing in the points. When the unpredictable geopolitical developments resulting from the invasion of Ukraine by Russia led to the exclusion of Nikita Mazepin from Haas Steiner had no doubts about which driver to focus on to complete the team together with Mick Schumacher.
The South Tyrolean manager has bet on the ‘godson’ Kevin Magnussen, who rewarded the trust placed in him with many points in the first races of the season when Haas was able to build on the momentum of a decidedly positive start to the championship. The US team moved from tenth place without points in the Constructors’ standings in 2021 to eighth in 2022 and the prospects for 2023 are even better given that thanks to title sponsor MoneyGram, the available budget will be in line with the expected expenditure ceiling. The arrival of Nico Hulkenberg also guarantees the presence of another solid and experienced driver on the track.
Magnussen even brought the Haas to pole position in Brazil thanks to a perfect strategy in Q3 and a textbook lap from the Dane. Steiner is convinced that an even better version of his favorite Viking will be on the track in 2023: “Magnussen is getting back into shape. The program is long, the races are many, but he manages them well and I can’t wait for next year. As he got older he matured. We all become calmer and see things a little differently as we get older. He is very relaxed most of the time and now, by combining this 2.0 version of Magnussen with an experienced race engineer in Mark Slade, I hope we will see an even better Kevin in the future.”Steiner’s words reported by the official F1 website.
The star of the Netflix series Drive to Survive is convinced that Haas will experience fewer ups and downs in 2023 than in 2022: “We hope that next year we can go back to being more constant ea maintain good performance throughout the season. A year ago we got off to a good start, then from the middle of the season we had some bad luck, but we also lowered our level of competitiveness, only finding it again in the final stages”.
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