Magnussen riding "massive rollercoaster" after shock Haas performance

Kevin Magnussen has described his F1 return as "a massive rollercoaster" following a shock qualifying performance on his first race back with Haas.

Magnussen was a late call-up as a replacement for the ousted Nikita Mazepin, with the Dane only turning his first laps in 2022 machinery on the final days of pre-season testing.

With Magnussen conceding to feeling nerves ahead of his return, he shook those off to line up his Haas seventh on the grid to end two years of misery for the team.

"It’s been a massive rollercoaster from getting the call from Guenther [Steiner], getting really surprised by that," said Magnussen.

"Then trying to make it happen there were some obstacles that I had to sort out.

"I was already a bit nervous getting here, driving the car for the first time and having a sore neck.

"You hope the car is good, you never really know with testing. Now here, having an issue in qualifying and not thinking we could get out in Q3, what a rollercoaster.

"I’m certainly hungry. I feel so unbelievably lucky to be in this situation with a good car in Formula 1. It’s a lot of fun."

Knowing the VF-22 has more pace than its 2021 predecessor, Magnussen believes reliability will be a determining factor as he chases the team's first points for 17 months.

"We had some good long run pace in practice, but again you don’t really know what people are running on power and fuel and stuff," assessed Magnussen. "It certainly wasn’t bad, the long run.

"Starting P7, if you can do that you’ve got to go for points. The biggest concern is reliability, I would say."

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