Haas team boss Guenther Steiner says he expects Kevin Magnussen to quickly adapt to his new surroundings during the opening pre-season test at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.
Magnussen, 24, has made the move to Haas following spells with McLaren and Renault, and will begin the team’s pre-season preparations at the Spanish Grand Prix venue next Monday.
Steiner believes Magnussen will get up to speed easily in the VF-17, rather than having to devote too much time adjusting to a different operation.
“I don’t think that will be difficult,” Steiner said of Magnussen’s integration within Haas.
“For sure it will take some time, but I don’t think we will spend a lot of time on that one.
“He’ll have been in the simulator by then, already twice, and he has worked with his race engineers.
“It looks like they’ve established a good way of communicating. He has done this before. It’s nothing new for him. It’s just a little bit of change for him from where he was before.”
Steiner also pinpointed obtaining a reliable base as a key part of Haas’ aims for the first four-day test.
“In our first test of the season, you try to make sure everything works as you designed it,” he explained.
“You just prove out whatever you did, and in the second part of the test, you try to get performance out of the car.
“Or, better said, you try to get performance as quickly as possible. First of all, make sure everything works. Everything is new on the car. The first test is quite important just from a reliability factor.
“You try to learn as much as possible about the car. You get the baseline on the car and you work off that baseline the rest of the year.”
Haas’ VF-17 will be unveiled on Sunday, prior to a formal presentation next Monday, shortly before the official start of testing.
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