The father and son duo of Jan and Kevin Magnussen have completed their first joint test in preparation for the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
Together with Anders Fjordbach, the third driver for their Le Mans line-up, the pair carried out testing at the Motorland Aragon circuit in Spain.
Kevin flew in from the United States following his late IndyCar call-up at Road America, and alongside his father and Fjordbach, the #49 ORECA 07-Gibson completed 262 laps of the Spanish circuit to prepare for the French endurance classic.
“I think it’s been a good start to the project,” Kevin said. We made great progress over the two days and, if we compare our speed to the other LMP2 teams that also tested this week, it looks strong.
“But more importantly, it feels like we three drivers fit really well together. We all three gave the same feedback to the engineers after our runs and, if we agree on how the car should behave, then as I said it is a really good start.”
The former F1 driver and newly crowned IMSA winner will be making his first start at Le Mans, in contrast to his father, who has raced there since 1999 and holds four class victories with Corvette.
The test marked the first time Kevin had shared a race car with his father.
“It was really cool,” Magnussen said about the experience. “It’s quite natural for my father and I to talk about race cars, because we have done that pretty much since I could talk, and we really understand each other well. But usually we tend to talk about each of our race cars, and now all of a sudden it was about the same one.
“It was fun and interesting to hear each other’s feedback, and it was especially fun to stand and compare my dad’s data with my own. It was an extraordinary experience.”
For the elder Magnussen, the test gave an opportunity to prepare for his first start in a prototype at Le Mans since 2003.
“It’s been a hugely rewarding test,” he said. “The purpose was to get the car on the track and at the same time see how we worked together.
“It was our first test together in the line up we will have at Le Mans, so there were quite a lot on the job list but everything has gone smoothly and efficiently.
“At first glance it seems like we have a fast car which all three of us pretty quickly got used to. We tried a lot of different setups and now have a pretty good plan for what we will achieve in the official Le Mans test.”
