Kevin Magnussen Q&A: Spanish Grand Prix

Round 8 of the 2023 FIA Formula 1 World Championship takes us just over 300 miles southwest of Monaco to Barcelona, for the Spanish Grand Prix. Your best finish came in 2018 with a hard-fought sixth place, what do you like about the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya?

“Barcelona is one of the race tracks around the world I’ve driven the most out. Many Formula 1 drivers have that in common because Barcelona has traditionally been a track where we’ve had winter testing and in all the junior categories the track has been used for testing a lot, it’s present on nearly every calendar in every category so it’s familiar.”

Changes to the track have been made for this season with the chicane that was added in 2007 at Turns 14-15 being removed, the widening of the run-off area in Turn 1, and the official track length being 18 meters shorter than the previous track. As a driver who opts not to do track walks, how do you get to grips with little changes throughout a lap, or after one practice session does it feel comfortable? 

“I think it’s going to be exciting to try the original layout without the chicane. It always seemed like a great sequence of corners – the last two corners – with it being so high-speed. Let’s see what that does for overtaking, I have a feeling it might be slightly better for overtaking but time will tell.”

 

The Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya is a track that drivers know like the back of their hand, but without having pre-season testing there to test and finetune the VF-23, will this be a different experience?

“I think by now knowing the track so well it won’t be that different. We know where the VF-23 is different from the VF-22, and I don’t think from a driving perspective it will be that different. I’m just looking forward to getting to Barcelona, trying the new layout of the track and hopefully having a good result.”