Magnussen ‘lacking confidence’ in VF-23 while Steiner demands more

Kevin Magnussen has admitted he is struggling to get to grips with Haas’ VF-23 while Team Principal Guenther Steiner demands more from his driver.

Magnussen has been out-qualified by teammate Nico Hulkenberg in all three qualifying sessions so far.

Magnussen has only managed to pick up one point so far this season with his 10th-place finish in Saudi Arabia. Meanwhile, Hulkenberg sits ninth in the standings with six points – all from Australia.

“My race wasn’t great,” Magnussen said reflecting on his Australia DNF. “Nico scored some good points and that’s really great.

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“When you don’t have a good race yourself, your team-mate can make up for it and we want to finish as high as we can in the Constructors’ Championship and improve on our P8 last year.

“That’s what it’s going to take all through the year, both of us delivering on a consistent basis.”

Speaking to the media ahead of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, the Dane conceded that he isn’t quite comfortable in Haas’ 2023 challenger.

“I think we’ve found it for qualifying and the race, or all of the three weekends we’ve had so far, but we haven’t started off in in the right place with the set-up,” Magnussen explained.

“You lack a little bit of confidence because if you start in FP1 pretty close to what you’re going to run in qualifying, you get a lot of laps with that car and that balance and you can optimise your driving style around that and it’s never optimum going into qualifying with a different set-up, a new set-up you haven’t tried.

“So I think that’s the target for us: to hit the ground running a little closer to what we are going to run in qualifying and the race and hopefully that’s going to be a step forward for us.”

Earlier in the week, Haas team principal Guenther Steiner gave Magnussen a five-race ultimatum to secure a seat with the team for 2024.

While Hulkenberg is sitting comfortably with a multi-year deal under his belt, Magnussen’s future beyond 2023 is uncertain.

The 30-year-old outperformed Mick Schumacher in 2022 but Hulkenberg’s return to F1 could threaten the Dane.

“We all know what Kevin can be doing but we all need to be pushed,” Steiner told Mirror Sport.

“Kevin is not in a happy place at the moment, being behind Nico. In qualifying he is not happy. He is happy for the team and he knows the car is there for him to be able to do it – he just needs to get it done.”

“I’m pretty sure that he can get it done,” Steiner added.

“He’s got the talent and he did it before, he just needs to step up and get everything out of it that’s there.

“It’s much easier having an experienced teammate who you can look at and say, ‘How is he doing that?’. They get all the data from each other and they can see it. And it shows that he cares.”