Magnussen 'Took One For The Team' In Last Races Of 2023 Season

Sunday, 31 December 2023 at 19:00

Haas Formula One team ran two different cars in the last two races of the season, and Kevin Magnussen believes he "took one for the team" by driving the new concept.

Haas F1 struggled throughout the season and was hopeful of gaining performance with the upgrade package brought to the United States Grand Prix weekend.

However, the opposite was true. While newly introduced upgrades seemed to improve some areas, they lacked in others, and Haas cars' overall performance didn't improve.

The problem was so big that Nico Hulkenberg decided he would drive the older concept rather than the new one for the last two races of the season.

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Kevin Magnussen chose to drive the newer concept. While it seemed like a great move for collecting valuable data, team principal Guenther Steiner said they ran different cars just to suit their drivers' preferences. Magnussen told Motorsport Week:

“"I think we’ve learned, it was good to get some track information from this type of car. Although it wasn’t better, I think it was good that we ran the two cars next to each other for a couple of races."”

While it was his own choice to drive the newer version of the car for the penultimate race of the season in Las Vegas, the Danish driver stated he would have rather driven the older one for the last race in Abu Dhabi.

“"I would have liked maybe just one race for that, and then go back to the old one. But that logistically wasn’t possible. So, I guess I took one for the team. But happy to do that, and look forward to next year."”

The 31-year-old lately said he could see potential in the car he drove, the only problem was he and his team couldn't seem to unlock its potential properly. But that gives him hope going into the next season.