Kevin Magnussen says he is ready to go racing after finishing his final day of pre-season testing by completing one hundred and fifty-three laps of the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya on Thursday.
The Haas F1 Team driver set a best time of 1:18.360s that was good enough for second place on the day, albeit more than a second down on Scuderia Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel, and he feels his time in the car has been extremely valuable, and has given him good confidence heading into the new season.
“We had a good day and, overall, I’m pleased with what we’ve done this winter test,” said Magnussen. “My time in the car has been valuable and I think we’ve learned a lot.
“I’m hoping the team will have another good day tomorrow, then I think we’ll be in decent shape to start the season. I feel like we’ve ticked the boxes you need to before going racing.
“We achieved what we had set out to in the program. Now I’m ready to go racing.”
Team principal Guenther Steiner says a lot was learned about the VF-18 throughout the day, and he hopes Fridays final day of testing will is as productive as Thursdays was.
“Our most productive day of preseason testing today,” said Steiner. “We did more than 150 laps and we learned quite a lot about the car.
“We have one more day to go tomorrow with Romain. We’ll be working hard to have a day like today.”
