MONTREAL (Reuters) – Back in Formula One after he thought that chapter in his life was over, Kevin Magnussen mentioned on Thursday he’s living a dream that not even irritating engine failures and a nightmare string of DNF’s can wake him from.
After 127 Formula One begins Magnussen arrives at this weekend’s Canadian Grand Prix nonetheless chasing a maiden win however the Haas driver sounded extra like a world champion than somebody who has failed to complete three of his final 4 races.
The hard-charging Dane had an eye-opening begin to his F1 comeback, selecting up factors in three of his first 4 races, together with an outstanding fifth place in the season opener in Bahrain.
“Don’t ever really feel sorry for us,” Magnussen instructed Reuters. “When you get a possibility via the again door you do not count on it is vitally straightforward to take pleasure in and respect it.
“I used to be anticipating Formula One to be a closed chapter in my life. I wasn’t even dreaming it. It is greater than a dream come true.”
Magnussen’s comeback is his second in a profession that began with McLaren in 2014 earlier than stalling after a 12 months on the sidelines in 2015.
Informed by electronic mail on his birthday that McLaren had been casting him apart, he joined Renault at brief discover earlier than the begin of the 2016 season and moved to U.S.-owned Haas for 2017.
At the finish of the 2020 season, Haas parted firm with each Magnussen and Romain Grosjean in favour of younger weapons Mick Schumacher, son of seven-times world champion Michael, and Russian Nikita Mazepin.
Magnussen mentioned he had given up hope of a Formula One comeback till Haas group boss Guenther Steiner supplied him the seat of sacked Mazepin.
A second probability and the beginning of his first little one final 12 months have introduced new perspective that not even reliability issues round the group’s Ferrari engines and aerodynamic points that compelled governing physique FIA to take motion on Thursday can shake.
“I do not make the engines,” shrugged Magnussen, who has scored all 15 of Haas’s factors this season. “I am unable to affect that in any means so there isn’t any sense in worrying about it.”
The 29-year-old Dane has taken an analogous method to “porpoising”, wherein the automobiles bounce dramatically at excessive speeds, like the movement of a porpoise via water.
FIA was prompted to behave after Lewis Hamilton suffered extreme again pains throughout Sunday’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
“That is why FIA is there to step in and do the proper factor when the groups cannot agree which they by no means can,” mentioned Magnussen.
“It’s been a difficulty for everybody however at the finish of the day we get on with our jobs.”
(Reporting by Steve Keating in Montreal, Editing by Ed Osmond)
