Kevin Magnussen - Azerbaijan GP Q&A

You’ve advanced to the final round of qualifying in every event this season. How has the team’s methodology and execution augmented your own skills behind the wheel?

“I think it’s really good that we’ve been able to do so well in qualifying this year, but obviously we also want to convert that into points in the race. That’s where our main focus is at. It’s great to know the car is competitive over one lap, therefore it should be competitive in a race, as well. We just need to work hard at that.”

Emulating the success of qualifying in the race has proven to be difficult, at least in the last two races. What are you feeling in the car during qualifying that you’re not feeling in the race?

“The only difference there is between qualifying and the race is that you fill it up with fuel and do more laps on the same set of tires. It’s got to be something with the tires. We don’t understand the full picture, yet, but we’re working hard to figure it out.”

The tires seem to have an even smaller operating window than they did last year. Is that accurate, or is it more a matter of getting the tires into their operating window rather than keeping them in that window?

“The tires are slightly different this year. You have a thinner tread on the tires, which obviously would have some effect, but mainly it should help with blistering. I don’t know, though, it’s definitely the thing we’re focused on at the moment, trying to get more out of the tires in the race.”

Rich Energy Haas F1 Team had speed throughout the Australian Grand Prix race weekend. With it taking place at a street circuit, do you envision some carryover of that kind of sustained speed when you return to Baku City Circuit?

“I think they’re two very different tracks. Baku is a low-downforce track with very long straights, slow corners, and quite low grip from the track. It’s going to be interesting to see how we go there. I don’t anticipate it to be our strongest circuit of the year, but I’m still positive we can go there and fight for points.”

Baku has been described as a mix between Monza and Monaco. That means high speeds at a very tight track. How do you expect this year’s new aero package to impact the race, both in terms of the speed you can achieve and the overtaking opportunities that will be available?

“I don’t know if this year’s new aero package will do too much. Maybe the bigger DRS will mean that you’ll get easier overtaking, which was already easy in Baku. So, we’ll see how that goes. I don’t know if the DRS zones have been shortened, but maybe they should be as I think in Baku the difference would be very, very big between DRS and non-DRS. Baku always offers a great race with lots of action, so we’re looking forward to going there.”