Kevin Magnussen admits he is enjoying the sense of overachievement with Haas much more than he would at the underperforming McLaren & Renault teams.
The Dane has come alive with the American squad since joining in 2017 and has certainly made more of an impression than he did at either Woking in 2014 or Enstone in 2016.
This season, his performances have helped Haas to fifth in the Constructors’ Championship in just their third year and that inexperience, Magnussen believes, cost them the chance to keep on fighting Renault until the very end.
“As a team, we’re doing better and better, we’re learning as we go,” he said in his Abu Dhabi preview.
“For us, we’re such a new team, performing at such a high level already, sometimes we’re a bit short of experience for the performance levels being achieved.
“We’re fighting big, experienced teams like Renault, McLaren, Williams and, as a new team, sometimes it’s hard to avoid mistakes because of a lack of experience.
“I’d rather be in an inexperienced team overperforming than in an experienced team underperforming.”
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Magnussen’s 55 points have also matched his best ever season total, achieved with McLaren in his rookie year, and he admits there is mixed feelings about it.
“I think 55 points is good for a midfield team, but I still think there was potential for more this year. That’s both a positive and a negative,” Kevin claimed.
“Positive, because we’ve showed we have great potential in the team to do more, but of course, it’s always disappointing not to get everything out of it as you could.
“We’re learning as a team and next year we’ll have even more experience. We’ll have learned a lot from this year and, hopefully, we can do a bit more next year.”