MAGNUSSEN: Fighting for Every Point

There’s not much to say about our race at Road America. I think it’s pretty evident that we’re not super competitive at the moment. So we have to fight for every point that we can get.

At Road America, had everything gone to plan, we would have ended up around fifth, but because of the punctures and a few other mishaps on track it turned out to be sixth. Even if I don’t like it so much, it’s our situation right now and we have to make the best of it.

We’re eight points in the lead right now with three races left, so we have to keep fighting for every single point that we can get our hands on. We can’t play it safe. We have to attack and we have to go for every opportunity that comes our way.

We’re up against the No. 93 Viper and they are very, very strong so I don’t know if it will be possible but we’ll have to wait and see how it plays out. The last race of the season, Petit Le Mans, is a long, long race and a lot of stuff can happen but that isn’t something we can count on.

The weekend following Road America I had another round of the Danish Thundersport Championship. Usually we have three races every weekend but because of bad weather the last race was cancelled so we only did the first two.

We got pole position for the first race and as we were lining up for the first race, the rain started to fall just a little bit. A couple of us made the decision to pit on lap 1 to take on wets, and immediately it turned out to be the wrong decision. Two guys pitted and we finished 14th and 15th so that wasn’t so good!

For race two, I started 14th and that was in full wet conditions but that was a good one for us as I came through and won the race and then they unfortunately cancelled the last race. Following that race weekend, I’m now second in the Championship, 10 points back, that first race really cost me a lot of points.

I have three races to go and the series has four races left in the championship. Unfortunately, I’m going to miss out on one due to my commitments in the European Le Mans Series.

Over the past couple of weeks it has been nice to spend time with Kevin who was home during the break in the Formula 1 season. It was nice as he got to spend time with friends and family, but he’s ready to get back to it and get on with the second half of the season.

It will be interesting to see how they do at Spa. My gut feeling is that it might not be the best race for McLaren but who knows! It will be really interesting to see and I know that Spa is one of Kevin’s favorite places.

Now that Kevin is actually in Formula 1, he understands much more what the job really is all about and it’s not an easy. It’s hard work all the time and you’re always subject to a lot of people’s opinions.

There’s a lot of pressure coming from everywhere but he’s coping with it pretty well I think. I’m sure he loves being a Formula 1 driver but you can’t really prepare yourself for some of the pressure until you’re there, but I think he does that pretty well.

When he gets in the car and pulls the visor down it’s a bit of a sanctuary where he can finally focus on the racing part of it. It was like that with me and I think Kevin is the same way. That’s what he wants to do.

He didn’t become a Formula 1 driver to do all the media stuff, it was to drive the car and I think that he sees it that way. He looks forward to getting back in the car every time and he’s really enjoying that and also the challenge of trying to develop this car, which is also very interesting.

See you at VIR this week.