Kevin Magnussen cannot wait to see the back of the current Haas car although has warned against expecting miracles with the upcoming upgrades.
The team’s struggles this season have been well documented, notably in relation to over-aggressive tyre wear, leading to a long, hard road toward discovering a cure.
For Haas’ home race in Austin next time out, the VF-23s of Magnussen and team-mate Nico Hulkenberg will sport a much-needed upgrade package.
After falling to ninth in the constructors’ standings behind Alfa Romeo after the team scored its first double-points haul of the season as Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu finished eighth and 10th respectively, Magnussen is now looking forward to the United States Grand Prix.
“I’m happy we get this upgrade for the next race, I’m excited about it,” said the Dane, whose 10th place in Singapore is Haas’ only point from the last 12 grands prix.
“It’s really positive for the team to have that look forward to, to get some new tools to play with, and hopefully we can find more performance.
“But I don’t think it’s realistic to expect miracles in the first race in Austin. Of course, we all wish for that at night when we go to sleep.
“But realistically it will take us a race or two to figure it out. I’m just really glad we can leave this behind and move on.”
Team principal Guenther Steiner readily concedes that at this stage Haas “don’t know how good the upgrade will be”, although there is an expectation the team will get “something good out of it”.
“The best thing is that we’re going in the direction we want to go for next year, and we will learn a lot this year for next season,” he added.
“At least we know we’re doing things to move forward, we’re not sitting here waiting for the end of the season. We will work hard until the end.”
Magnussen finished 14th at the Lusail International Circuit, which was about as good as he could hope for after starting 18th.
At a circuit Magnussen did not know heading into the weekend, he concedes it took him “too long to learn” the nuances of the track, particularly after just one practice session.
Magnussen was also the slowest of those who set a time in qualifying for the sprint before progressing to 13th in the one-third distance race.
“I felt like I found it in the race,” said Magnussen, with regard to understanding the track. “But it was a bigger challenge than I thought it would be, and unfortunately, with just one practice, I couldn’t learn it.
“I didn’t really find the rhythm properly, and then I kind of just tried too hard in both qualifyings, and I was out in Q1.
“If we’d had an easy Q3 car then you could get more laps and get used to it, but I was out in Q1 both times because I didn’t do a good enough lap.”
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