Steiner: Kevin Magnussen has ‘five races’ to secure his future

Kevin Magnussen may have his future determined in “five races” time says Haas Team Principal Guenther Steiner

Kevin Magnussen made his dramatic return to Formula One just a matter of days before the opening round of the 2022 season. He scored points at the first time of asking, and now the Danish driver’s future looks uncertain.

The Haas driver has had a lacklustre start to his 2023 campaign, having only scored one point in Saudi Arabia. Magnussen also hit the wall last time out in Australia, in the closing stages of the Grand Prix.

The incident involving Kevin Magnussen that led to our third restart of the day! 💥#AusGP #F1 pic.twitter.com/PLxHFsZMhK

— Formula 1 (@F1) April 2, 2023

Now, Haas Team Principal Guenther Steiner has provided a timeline to Mirror Sport regarding Magnussen’s future contract negotiations. On his approach to said negotiations, he said:

“In the end, it is all down to performance but, at the moment, I’m pretty relaxed about it. I want to at least give another five races to see where we are and then start to think about it.”

He continued: “I always said last year that I would have loved to have set the drivers earlier, but we wanted to give Mick [Schumacher] the chance to show what he can do. Hopefully, this year we can confirm what we are doing before the summer break because it’s not nice from my point of view.”

Five races take us to the Spanish Grand Prix at the beginning of June, with the summer break set to commence following the Belgian Grand Prix at the end of July. Four races lie between the two where we could get the verdict on Magnussen’s future.

Magnussen “is not in a happy place at the moment,” according to Steiner

The Danish driver has not had the best start to the season after the first three races. His teammate, 2023 Formula One returnee Nico Hulkenberg, has outscored him by five points. And Magnussen did not finish the last race.

The Haas boss remains confident in his driver after his tricky start to the season but knows Magnussen is unhappy with his performance. Steiner said:

“We all know what Kevin [Magnussen] can be doing, but we all need to be pushed. Kevin is not in a happy place at the moment, being behind Nico [Hulkenberg]. In qualifying, he is not happy. He is happy for the team, and he knows the car is there for him to be able to do it – he just needs to get it done.”

Will Magnussen produce the results in the next five races to secure his seat for 2024?

Feature Image Credit: @HaasF1Team on Twitter