Despite recent setbacks, Kevin Magnussen believes the Haas team should be “proud” to be challenging a manufacturer like Renault.
The two outfits have been at each other’s throats for much of the season but a failure to score in Austin and Mexico plus the upheld disqualification of Romain Grosjean at Monza has seen the French works squad pull out a 30-point lead with two races to go.
Even so, the Dane, a former driver at the Enstone team, isn’t giving up and praised the work that has been done in 2018.
“The midfield fight is still intense, although the gap to Renault has increased,” he commented. “We shouldn’t really be fighting Renault in Formula 1 because they have a lot more resources – a big factory and a lot more people involved.
“With what we’ve got, we use it a lot better than they do. That’s already something to be proud of. On average, we’ve been quicker than them this year so, of course, it’s disappointing to be behind them in the championship at this point.
“We’re still really keen to try and catch up, and we’ll do everything we can to maximize our chances against them,” Magnussen added. “It’s the ‘best of the rest’, so there’s a lot of pride in it
“We’ve taken a step forward this year and we’ve proved that we can build a car that’s capable of best-of-the-rest. We just have to minimize the mistakes, score points and get the results we deserve to have more points regularly.”
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Even if they should come up short, fifth place does appear pretty safe in the Constructors’ standings with the lagging McLaren team 22 points back.
“It’s got a big significance for us. Fourth or fifth would be a big achievement for Haas F1 Team in its third season of competition,” Grosjean added.