Magnussen: The value of all sessions is increasing, that’s good

Haas F1 driver Kevin Magnussen welcomes the change to the weekend’s new sprint format as it boosts the spirit and makes each session more meaningful.

Kevin Magnussen: “Last year in Baku we had a pretty fast car, despite the fact that we didn’t have an aerodynamic kit configuration designed for low downforce circuits at the time. This year we have it, and I hope it will help us.

We were going pretty fast then, only I got stuck behind Esteban Ocon and couldn’t catch up with him. I hope the car will now allow us to act more aggressively and it will be easier to overtake rivals.

In the middle of the pack it is now a very tight battle. It’s hard to predict where we’ll end up, but I’m pretty optimistic. While I’m less confident driving the VF-23 than last year, I think we’ve already found our way to this car. The difficulty is that in all three stages we didn’t have the most successful settings at the beginning of the weekend, and that had consequences.

I hope that the settings will immediately get closer to the settings needed for qualifying and the race this weekend, so that we can take a step forward. That is all the more important on such a weekend, because qualifications are held immediately after Friday practice in Baku.

But I like the new weekend format. In a more or less calm mode, only training will take place, and all other sessions will be accompanied by serious pressure – this is always much more interesting. It is therefore important to work effectively during practice to prepare the car for qualifying. The task is not easy, but everyone is on an equal footing.

So in my opinion, this format increases the overall interest in track events. Not that the usual format is boring, but most of the time we do a lot of laps that essentially mean nothing, and when the role of each weekend session is increased, that’s great.