Kevin Magnussen confident overtaking issue is circuit specific

Kevin Magnussen believes this weekend's Bahrain Grand Prix will silence those who were critical of the season-opening Australian GP's lack of overtaking, with many believing it will be a season-long problem.

The Haas driver however is confident the problem is circuit specific, with Albert Park's narrow layout partly to blame. Magnussen reckons Bahrain will produce an "exciting" race.

“Bahrain is a much better circuit for overtaking than Australia," he said. "I don’t think we’re going to have as many negative comments about a boring race in Bahrain because the track layout is a lot better for racing and overtaking. I’m sure we’ll see an exciting grand prix."

Team-mate Romain Grosjean agreed, adding: “I love driving in Bahrain. I’ve always had a good feeling there, and I think it’s a really exciting track for racing and overtaking. We’ll see how it goes again. As I said, it’s always given me a good feeling, and I’m hopeful I can keep it going.

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"It’s one of those tracks where there are many opportunities to overtake, which is amazing. Obviously there’s turn one, but turn three, turn 11, turn 15 – they all make it probably one of the best circuits for racing."

Haas enjoyed its best ever qualifying performance of sixth and seventh in Melbourne and were running fourth and fifth in the race before both retired within a few laps of one another. Magnussen is hopeful they can carry that performance over to Bahrain and start collecting some points.

“It would be great to have a good result in Bahrain after such big disappointment in Australia," added Magnussen. "We’ve got to start building points, as we’ve fallen behind after Australia. We’ve got to catch up.

"We have a good car, but I’m cautious. We’ll take it one race at a time. There’s no guarantee we’ll be that strong in Bahrain, so we have to work hard to try and understand the car and make sure we carry the performance forward into the next race."