Kevin Magnussen Q&A: Belgian Grand Prix

Welcome back from holidays! What did you get up to during the summer break and what are your feelings coming into the second leg of the season?

“I went sailing with my family and some friends in Denmark and enjoyed not travelling for a few weeks and now I’ve got fully charged batteries ready to push for the second half of the season. I’m very excited for the second part – more work with the car and the upgrade – hoping to get more out of it and make more progress which hopefully will get us some more points.”

 

For Round 14, we head to Spa-Francorchamps for the Belgian Grand Prix. It’s a track with great heritage, producing memorable sporting moments throughout the decades and is home to the legendary Eau Rouge. What do you like about this track and what memories does it hold for you – from both watching as a child to racing around it yourself?

“Spa is an awesome track, it’s a legendary track. It’s super-fast so not only is the history of the place very special but driving around it is a very special feeling. It’s a great race and one that’s always looked forward to in the year. Actually, it was the first Formula 1 race I went to as a child with my dad and my first memory of Formula 1 is from that weekend.”

New for this season, run-off sections have been changed at Eau Rouge and Raidillon as well as new gravel traps being incorporated at other corners, all to improve safety. Do you welcome these modifications, and do you expect any of the updates to change your approach to the track or impact racing on Sunday? 

“I think it’s good to have gravel instead of tarmac run-off as I feel it’s safer in some ways and it makes it easier in terms of track limits. It makes it simpler and also a little more challenging as pushing the limits will have a bigger risk, which is a good thing I think.”

 

A new technical directive will come into place from this race, measuring the vertical forces acting upon cars following feedback from drivers around porpoising. How is the VF-22 currently handling, is it a challenge that you’re getting used to or are you still noticing it and where do you think Haas ranks among teams with the issue?

“I don’t feel that porpoising is an issue anymore. It was certainly an issue at the beginning of the season but very quickly we made changes to the car to address this issue. We had to sacrifice a bit of performance to get the porpoising sorted but then gradually we’ve been able to build back that performance without the porpoising returning. I do think it’s something that teams can solve if they really want to, but it does come at a cost performance-wise but we’ve done that and many other teams have done it, so the teams who haven’t done it yet will have to.”