F1 star insists 'lot of work to do' after brutal testing session

Verstappen during official testing in Bahrain in 2023 — Photo: © IMAGO

F1 Testing 2024

F1 star insists 'lot of work to do' after brutal testing session

The team had a positive first day of running in Bahrain, but were well off the pace set by Max Verstappen

Tyler Rowlinson

Thursday 22 February 2024 17:57

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Haas enjoyed a ‘positive’ opening day to pre-season testing in Bahrain on Wednesday – but driver Kevin Magnussen insists that there is ‘still a lot of work to do.’

Both Magnussen and team-mate Nico Hulkenberg took to the track in Sakhir in the VF-24 – the former in the morning session and the latter in the afternoon – with the duo completing 148 laps between them.

The Haas pair finished bottom of the timing sheets at the end of the day, both over four seconds down on the fastest lap set by Red Bull’s Max Verstappen.

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While the team seemed to have a productive day on track on Wednesday and hit the targets they set out, Magnussen has suggested there is still more work to be done.

Haas completed 148 laps on Wednesday in Bahrain

The team said that they had a positive day of testing

But Kevin Magnussen insists that there is still more work to do

Magnussen: There's a lot of work to do

Speaking during the Haas daily recap, the Danish driver said: "I feel very good. Physically, it was a good morning as it’s always fun getting back into the car after the winter.

“I think we had a pretty positive morning, we just focused on long runs and we’re really trying to address the issues that we had last year with the tires.

“That’s going to be our main focus and we’re happy about what we saw this morning, but there’s clearly a lot of work to do but everyone’s fired up to investigate and learn about this new car."

Team-mate Hulkenberg added: "Our afternoon was mainly about high-fuel, long runs and the objective was to learn about the car and try some things with the tires.

“We know it was our weakness last year so that’s really been the focus today. It was all good and positive, there were no issues on the technical side and with 82 laps on the board, everything was achieved."

"For our first day of pre-season testing, overall, I think it was a pretty decent day – it wasn’t perfect, but it was a really decent start,” said team principal Komatsu.

“We have a few operational things to sharpen up as well, just so we run slightly better, but with 148 laps recorded, we now have plenty to build on [for the rest of testing]."

F1 Red Bull Max Verstappen Haas Nico Hulkenberg Kevin Magnussen