It has certainly been an interesting fortnight for the Haas F1 team. They had to drop their title sponsor and one of their drivers because of the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict. The American team dropped Nikita Mazepin for the 2022 season ahead of the pre-season testing. But interestingly they brought back their former driver Kevin Magnussen as his replacement.
The news of his return to the sport certainly caught everyone by surprise. Magnussen had posted his comments on the 2022 Haas car on his Instagram a few weeks ago.
Magnussen doing a follow-up comment to his Instagram post from 4 weeks ago, now that he’s back at Haas from formula1
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After he was announced as the American team’s driver for this season, he replied to his post and wrote,” This aged well,” on his post.
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Haas too posted a rather hilarious message to welcome their old driver back in the sport. “Warning all F1 Paddock Doors,” wrote Haas on their Twitter.
I was obviously very surprised: Kevin Magnussen on his F1 return with Haas
As reported by ESPN, the Danish driver had left the sport at the end of the 2020 season after the Haas F1 team dropped him. Back then, it looked unlikely that the former McLaren driver would ever return to the sport.
But his return to F1 caught everyone by surprise. As many had expected that the team would go for their reserve driver.
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“I was obviously very surprised but equally very excited to receive the call from Haas F1 Team. I was looking in a different direction regarding my commitments for 2022, but the opportunity to return to compete in Formula 1, and with a team I know extremely well, was simply too appealing,” said Kevin.
Magnussen would have little to no time to adjust to the new 2022 cars as he has no previous experience in them. He would look to get as much running in the new cars as possible in the preseason tests. The team has brought him on as team leader and to help them in developing the new car with his experience in the sport.
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It would be interesting to see how much time does Kevin take to get to the grips with the 2022 cars. Hopefully, his second chance with the team will bring him better success than his previous stint.