Kevin Magnussen, now in his seventh season with Haas, has voiced his desire to stay with the American outfit beyond his current contract, which is set to run out at the end of 2024.
When asked during his Thursday media session whether he has started talks to stay next year, Magnussen said it’s not a priority right now.
“Not concrete talks, but when you’re part of the team, you’re talking all the time on this, so I think more focus on the season than anything else.”
Haas’s issues were clear to see throughout last season as they struggled all year with a car that whilst fast in qualifying, tended to fall down the order in the race due to massive struggles with tyre wear.
Despite this, they seemed to have turned a corner so far this season, scoring points in three out of the five races. Magnussen however believes there is more to come from the VF-24.
“I’ve been here for many years now, and there’s always been some potential that we haven’t seen to really exploit. I feel like now maybe we’re building a better foundation to go and exploit that potential that I feel we have.”
When asked about his teammate, Nico Hulkenberg, leaving Haas to join Sauber next season Magnussen admitted whilst the news was unexpected, he understood the great opportunity of the Audi takeover of Sauber for 2026.
“Honestly, I thought it would be me and Nico again next year, but I thought that would be likely. Obviously, he’s taken the opportunity with Sauber and Audi, which I wish him all the best with that. “
With Hulkenberg’s move freeing up a space at Haas for 2025, speculation has already begun over who will be his replacement.
The leading candidate so far looks to be 18-year-old Ferrari junior and Haas’s current reserve driver, Oliver Bearman.
Bearman currently is competing in the Formula 2 championship for Prema, where he was regarded as one of the favourites for the title going into the season.
Whilst his F2 campaign hasn’t started the way he would have hoped, scoring only two points so far, there is the caveat that he’s competed in one less round than his competitors having sat out Round 2 in Saudi Arabia. Bearman had taken pole for the feature race, too.
This was due to him being given the opportunity of a lifetime to make his Formula 1 debut for Ferrari, replacing Carlos Sainz who was out with appendicitis.
In that one off appearance Bearman put in an outstanding performance coming home in P7, picking up six points and finishing ahead of 7-time World Champion Lewis Hamilton.
Despite Bearman’s impressive drive in Jeddah, Magnussen has said he won’t be there to “take care” if he is teammates with Bearman next season.
“I’m not really here to take care of young kids. I do that at home.
“Hopefully, the guy we’ll have in the car will be competent and professional and consistent like Nico has been. We’ll see if I’ll be in the other car.”
Looking ahead to Miami this weekend, Magnussen is hoping the upgrades brought by Haas will help keep up his strong start to the season. With it being a sprint weekend, there will be less time to adapt to these new upgrades, however the Dane voiced his support for sprint races.
“I like the Sprint weekends, honestly. I think it’s been made more interesting this year with the open Parc Fermé after the Sprint. I enjoy them. More driving, less talking.”
