Kevin Magnussen: Formula 1 70th Anniversary Grand Prix Q&A

The British Grand Prix was somewhat of a rollercoaster weekend with extreme temperatures on Friday, a challenging qualifying session, grid promotion, a great start then the obvious disappointment of an early race retirement. How much time do you spend processing all that happened or is your mindset simply focused on the next race?

“Well there’s not too much to process from the race obviously, but there was a lot to learn from the weekend in general from practice and qualifying. We’ll see what we can take into this weekend.” 

What are the key takeaways from the British Grand Prix that can be applied to this weekend’s 70th Anniversary Grand Prix at Silverstone?

“On Friday it was very hot so if this weekend is as hot as it looks like, we might be able to take some of that learning from Friday and carry it on into this weekend.”

With Mugello, Nürburgring, Portimao and Imola announced on the Formula One calendar – do you have any experience of those circuits and if so, in what categories?

“I have experience at Nürburgring and Portimao. I’ve raced at the Nürburgring in almost every category I was in before Formula One except, I think, Renault 3.5. I did a Formula Three test in Portimao, so I’ve been there, but it was back around 2010 I think – certainly quite a while ago. I’ve never been to Mugello or Imola so there’ll be some learning to do, especially at Imola with just one practice session before qualifying. That’s going to be exciting.” 

From a driver’s perspective is it exciting to go to new circuits and have that element of the unknown ahead of a race weekend?

“I always like to learn new tracks. It’s a disadvantage if you don’t know the tracks and other competitors do know them. For the circuits I don’t know I’ll just have to learn them really quickly.”

How do you work with your engineers to prepare for those tracks, is it predominantly simulator work? What do you specifically focus on as a driver in this scenario?

“As a driver you just try and prepare beforehand as much as you can before driving the track, whether that’s on the simulator or watching videos. You study the track and analyze it as best as you can with things like onboard footage and previous races before going there for real. There’s not too much else you can do. In terms of what we do with the engineering, it’s really focused on getting the set-up as best as we can to start with.”