Kevin Magnussen reveals ‘big hit’ with ‘early version’ of 2024 Haas VF-24

Kevin Magnussen insists there are positives to take from Haas’ upgraded VF-23, but that they did discover it came with a “big hit” in “high-speed performance”.

After an encouraging opening practice hour with the heavily revised VF-23, Haas drawing from the Red Bull concept for the upgrade, Haas’ United States Grand Prix turned out to be a difficult weekend.

So much so the team opted to break parc ferme conditions to pull the cars from the grid ahead of the Grand Prix to make massive set-up changes.

Kevin Magnussen: We are already seeing the extra potential

Nico Hulkenberg raced from the pit lane to P11, missing out on a point by less than two seconds, while Magnussen was 14th and a lap down.

It had team boss Guenther Steiner bemoaning the upgrades had “not done what we expected” with Hulkenberg worried there are “still a lot of similarities with the old package and problems, especially in the fast corners here”.

Magnussen’s assessment, though, is a lot more encouraging with the Dane quick to remind everyone that this is basically the first edition of what is for Haas is an all-new concept.

“I think there was some interesting and positive signs with the upgraded car,” he told the media in Mexico City. “It’s a compromise, it’s not just a better car. And we knew that, it’s not a surprise.

“On paper, we knew there wasn’t going to be a big lap time improvement but we were hoping that some of the characteristics, some of the traits and weaknesses that we’ve seen with the car all year, were changed or affected by this by this upgrade.

“And I think we saw some positive signs that at least is addressing some of those weaknesses.

“What you got to remember is that we changed to this concept in the wind tunnel not that long ago and this is basically like the first drawing of this concept that they just put on the car. So it’s had very little work.

“The work on this concept is continuing in the wind tunnel, and we are already seeing the extra potential that this direction has.

“They reached kind of like a bit of a status quo, a dead end in the wind tunnel with the previous version or the previous concept, and they are now finding more potential. So that’s very positive.”

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Haas need more time admits Kevin Magnussen

Haas’ decision to introduce the upgrade in Austin has left the team with just four additional races to gain a better understanding of the car.

Magnussen concedes time on the track is what they most need right now with the driver saying while the B-spec car performed better in low-speed concerns, it took a hit in high-speed performance.

“I think it is to run this car, learn more about it,” he said. “Hopefully some of the findings that we will achieve with these last races will be useful in the development of next year’s car.

“We’re running a version of next year’s car, an early version of it, and it’s going to change a lot for next year, for sure, but it’s that direction.

“And I think some of that in testing it out in real life will be very useful to steer the direction for next year.”

Asked whether he was confident this package is better than its predecessor, he replied: “I think so, yeah. But we have to do more races to feel more confident that it actually is better.

“I think we saw some improvements in low-speed performance but then we took a big hit in high speed performance. So that’s a trade-off and a compromise that you’re making. We need to run it more and see whether the trend continues.

“We’re coming here to a low-speed, pretty low-speed track, but then with the ambient pressure and the altitude you run the car in a very different configuration with the cooling and the cooling you need to run is pretty extreme and perhaps we’ll take a little bit more of a hit with that, because of that new aero package doesn’t have as broad a spectrum of cooling options. But still it’s going to be interesting learnings.”

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