Motorsport Week sat down with Kevin Magnussen and Nico Hulkenberg in Las Vegas for an exclusive chat to discuss pushing for sixth in the Formula 1 Constructors’ Championship in their last races at Haas.
For Magnussen and Hulkenberg, the upcoming Abu Dhabi Grand Prix is the end of an era. Haas is moving on to new drivers next season, Esteban Ocon and Oliver Bearman with Hulkenberg set to start his multi-year adventure with Sauber in 2025. Magnussen meanwhile, sees his F1 journey come to an end, but this has happened twice before, at the end of 2014 and 2020, so don’t rule out a return in the future.
The Dane and German have a battle on their hands at the Yas Marina Circuit as three teams are locked in a tense battle for sixth in the F1 Constructors’ Championship. When Motorsport Week spoke with both drivers in Las Vegas, their exploits in Nevada handed Haas a slender advantage over Alpine and RB. Fortune in Qatar has seen the pendulum swing back in Alpine’s favour. The Anglo-French team has 59 points, five ahead of Haas with 54 as RB now looks like an outside bet with 46 points.
Nico Hulkenberg wants to ‘finish on a high’ with Haas
Haas has been a much-improved outfit across 2024, lifting itself from having abysmal tyre management and just 12 points in 2023, to being in consistent competition to grab fringe points-paying positions, improving the car through upgrades and being a genuine midfield contender.
“Pre-season testing in Bahrain, right away we understood, that we have a different animal for the car,” Hulkenberg told Motorsport Week.
This different animal has put Haas in the position it is now and Hulkenberg is keen to finish on a high with the team before moving on.
“I think the motivation is there and very high,” the German driver said. “We’ve grown together and built something very nice and cool together, and I want to finish on a high and strong. “I’m going to fight in the race until the very last moment, the very last lap. I think everyone at Haas would deserve that and we’ll work hard, but the others are not going to give that to us, so we’re going to put up a fight and try to get [P6] back.”
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Kevin Magnussen on playing the team game with Haas
For Magnussen, his F1 legacy is entwined with Haas, a team he joined in 2017 and has been a permanent fixture with ever since, apart from a year break in 2021. In Abu Dhabi he signs off from a team that is practically a family and unlike in 2020, he is leaving Haas with it being in a good place, with a strong, developing leader in Ayao Komatsu and gestating technical alliance with Toyota.
The candid, smiling and straight-talking Dane sums up his feelings well about going out with Haas as the team is doing well: “It’s certainly better than being shit,” he says. Throughout 2024, Magnussen has shown he’s willing to play the team game, and revealed “I don’t even know where I’m at” in the Drivers’ standings. “We’re not fighting for the World Championship individually. So what is the objective? I think it is to finish as high up in the constructors.”
Haas is the smallest team on the grid, and tens of millions of dollars are involved in elevating the team to sixth in the Constructors’ by the time the chequered flag falls in Yas Marina.
“I think it would feel good to give everyone that result,” Magnussen explained. “As I say, for everyone in the team, that’s a big thing. It means a lot financially as well. A lot of money comes with those positions. That money is going to help the team in the future. It would just be a great achievement because of the effect it has. Otherwise, there’s not a lot of pride in being sixth. As anyone competitive, anything else than winning isn’t really that fun. In this case, it has a good effect.”
Can Kevin Magnussen and Nico Hulkenberg get the job done for Haas in Abu Dhabi?
But can Haas get the job done? The team has been the most consistent compared to Alpine and RB across the entire season, but finds itself slightly on the back foot, as was the case when Motorsport Week spoke to Haas’ drivers ahead of the Las Vegas GP.
With that in mind, Magnussen said “It’s hard to be confident about it but I think it’s something that I’m very motivated for because why else are we going racing? As I said again, we can’t win. So what are we trying to do here? It’s cool, it’s fun to have something to go for. It’s exciting, at least a little bit. It makes it exciting to get a 10th place or two points or something like that. If you didn’t have that objective, then again, who cares?”
Straight-talking, hard-driving team player Magnussen sums it up well. Haas’ drivers have the fight and the will to go all out to achieve their collective goal in Abu Dhabi.
READ MORE – Nico Hulkenberg: Haas will become a ‘serious competitor’ in F1
