Kevin Magnussen believes the main reason for his strong start to the 2018 season is remaining with the same team for back-to-back seasons for the first time in his Formula One career.
Magnussen spent one-year stints at McLaren and Renault, before making the move to Haas a year ago. 2018 marks the first time in his F1 career that he has remained with the same team for a second season and he says he is seeing the advantages of team continuity.
"I think it is a combination of things," Magnussen replied when asked what were the reasons for this strong start to the season. "Of course, I have a better car than the start of last year and also there is a different feeling going into this season knowing the team and knowing everything. Having a car too that I've been part of the development with. The preparation is a lot better, there was a lot of good stuff we could build on from last year not with the same car but similar so when we come to the races there is stuff we can look back at from last year and the way we did things.
"We can do things better from that perspective. I think it is a big advantage to have that second year with the team but I'm only seeing that now as I've never been in a second year with any team. It is visible now that it is a bit advantage."
Haas' main problem in its first two season in F1 was consistency and getting the Pirelli tyres into the correct working window. Magnussen is confident his team has got on top of these issues and sees no reason why Haas will not perform to the same level it did in Australia and Bahrain in the upcoming races.
"I think because our car is consistent that was our weakness from last year that we had a car that sometimes you could manage to get in the window and it would work really well and be up there with the top four teams. This year it seems like it is a little easier even at the beginning of the weekend when we haven't sorted the tyres out perfectly we are still up there. I feel we have a better starting point than we had last year but we still need to improve."
Formula 1 Heineken Chinese Grand Prix U.S. coverage presented by Mothers Polish (All times Eastern)
Practice 1 - Thursday, April 12 09:55 PM - ESPN3
Practice 2 - Friday, April 13 1:55 AM - ESPN3
Practice 3 - Friday, April 13 11:00 PM - ESPNEWS
Qualifying - Saturday, April 14 1:55 AM - ESPN2
On the Grid - Sunday, April 15 - 1:30AM - ESPN2
Race - Sunday, April 15 - 2:05AM - ESPN2
Encore - Sunday April 15 - 1:00PM - ESPNEWS
Encore - Sunday, April 15 - 09:00PM - ESPN2