Magnussen at McLaren: what can we expect?

Sergio Perez found out the hard way that a top Formula 1 team such as McLaren takes no prisoners if you don't deliver.

So with that in mind, you could forgive his rookie replacement Kevin Magnussen for wanting his bosses to go easy with their expectations.

With all-new regulations delivering perhaps the biggest off-season change that F1 has ever experienced, plus modern testing restrictions meaning no chance to gain valuable mileage, Magnussen has all the reasons he could need in demanding a bit of leeway before he's required to produce top results.

Yet the 21-year-old certainly doesn't sound as though he wants McLaren to hold back in heaping on the pressure. He knows he's been signed to deliver, and that the only way he and his team will be happy is if they are winning.

"That's how it should be and how I want it to be - there should be pressure to win," he says. "It's no good having pressure just to be in the points or finish races."

Such a bold statement of intent must not be viewed as misguided arrogance, or a naive assumption that life in F1 will be easy. Spend any time with Magnussen and you quickly realise that he is a man who fully understands that natural talent alone can carry you only so far in this business.

He knows the work ethic is just as important for the drivers as it is for the engineers and designers.

Kevin Magnussen (left) cut out the wild moments to wrap up the 2013 Formula Renault 3.5 title © LAT

It's a lesson he put to good use in 2013 to win the World Series by Renault's flagship Formula Renault 3.5 category, and in doing so quelled the wilder aspects on display during his early career to become a fully-rounded, mature racer.

That was why he kept his head down and focused on making himself a better performer, even during the distractions of his possible (but ultimately aborted) young-driver test outing with Force India last summer, and the speculation over Perez's future towards the end of the 2013 campaign.

"I tried not to think too much about it," he explains about the whirlwind of speculation that surrounded him throughout the middle of last year.

"I had a job to do in World Series and I had to focus on that 100 per cent. I knew that this would be the year that was the final judge of my work.

"I had to win the championship and I had to do it in a way that showed that I can adapt, that I can drive a championship tactically, and I can drive it with my head. Normally you learn more from bad seasons, but this year I really learned a lot even though it was very good.

"I thought I became much more of the racing driver I wanted to be, and I grew up much more as a racing driver."

Convincing the McLaren engineers and team principal Martin Whitmarsh was just the start of the journey that Magnussen is undertaking. The road ahead is going to be a tough one - one with just as many soul-sapping pitfalls as beautiful peaks. Yet accepting that this is the way of F1 is a great place to start.

THE HAMILTON COMPARISON

McLaren's choice of Magnussen, its first rookie since Lewis Hamilton back in 2007, will inevitably lead to direct comparisons between the two men.

There has already been talk of the team doing what it can to protect Magnussen from the 'ravages' of the spotlight he will be under, especially since the circumstances he finds himself in are very different to those experienced by Hamilton over the winter of 2006-07.

Hamilton racked up thousands of testing miles before his rookie season © LAT

While the Briton, as reigning GP2 champion, completed many thousands of miles of testing to get up to speed, the modern test restrictions mean that Magnussen's running since confirmation of his drive has been limited to a 600-mile Pirelli test at Vallelunga, plus simulator work.

The man himself is not fazed that things will be harder for him, and reckons that no matter how much running he can do, a youngster is never going to reach a point where he can be satisfied he's fully cracked the art of F1.

"No matter what you do it's never going to be enough," he says. "You're never going to say, 'Right, I've learned everything, I'm now ready to go'. You always feel like you can do more.

"These days it's more difficult than it was seven years ago, when Lewis did it. There's no testing anymore, so we have to do it in a different way. But that's reality. It's the same for everyone, and you have to make the best of what you get.

"Surely for a top team like McLaren it might be a bigger risk to take a new driver, but otherwise where are you going to get the drivers from? They have to get them somehow. The other guys are getting older and one day you have to put a new driver in the car.

"I think it's brave what McLaren has done, and hopefully I'll be able to show they've done the right thing."

While the mileage available in a car is hugely restricted, Magnussen points out that the manner in which drivers are coming through and being prepared these days means they're not as disadvantaged as it would appear from the outside.

The assured way in which GP3 champion Daniil Kvyat got down to work in his practice outings in the US and Brazil with Toro Rosso, and the way in which Magnussen got up to speed so quickly during his debut F1 outing with McLaren at the Abu Dhabi young-driver test in 2012, prove that.

"My generation of drivers have all started very early," he points out. "The previous generation of drivers started a bit later. So if you take a driver at 19 from my generation, he will be better prepared at 19 than a driver was from the previous generation.

"Plus the technology that moves on and improves F1 is also doing that in the lower categories. We have grown up with that.

"I'm not saying that I'm 100 per cent ready for F1, because you'll never feel like that. You will always feel like you can do more, and you need a little bit more time.

"I'm not scared about that. I don't feel uncomfortable doing it, because I think I'll get to the point where it feels very good. But you can always improve more."

THE RIGHT TIME FOR A ROOKIE

There are two other factors that could help Magnussen minimise the usual negative aspects of being a rookie.

F1's new regulations mean every driver is starting afresh in 2014 © LAT

The first is that the all-new 2014 regulations will deliver such a different way to go racing that every driver is starting from a clean sheet of paper.

Whitmarsh, who has guided Magnussen's career since he signed up to the team's young-driver programme in 2009, admits that if ever there was a time to take the plunge and bring on a rookie, then it's this year.

"You can say actually this is an ideal opportunity, because everything the older drivers have learned, all that experience, is different," he says. "The powertrain is very, very different. The complexity of the whole energy cycling, and what is going to go on, is very different. So on that front he has as much experience as Fernando Alonso or Jenson Button."

Magnussen concurs that 2014 offers a better chance of operating on a much more level playing field: "There are a lot of new systems and the way you work with the team is going to change with the new regulations, because it's almost a different sport in the end.

"A lot of what we do is working with the car, and if the car is completely different then a lot of things will change. The experience you've had is going to be less valuable.

"But I'm not underestimating anything. I know I'm inexperienced and I know I'm going to have to work hard to make up for that. But I'm totally ready to do that."

The other factor that will be a help to Magnussen is having Button as a team-mate. As well as being a useful benchmark for his own performance, the Briton's maturity and amiable personality will be a boost in helping him progress.

"I think Jenson for me is the perfect team-mate," admits Magnussen. "He's quick, and hopefully we'll be able to push each other really well.

"He's got so much experience too, so the car he is developing is also my car. There will be differences but he will be pushing the team forward, and hopefully I can push the team forward with my speed and willingness to work.

"I feel good that Jenson is my team-mate. With his experience I can listen, watch how he is working with the team and I'm sure I can learn a lot from him."

Magnussen thinks Button will be the 'perfect' team-mate © LAT

The all-new regulations, the limited preparation and the huge uncertainty over whether McLaren's 2013 nightmare was a blip or part of a longer-term problem make it hard for Magnussen to make a firm prediction of what he can expect from 2014.

"When I have been in Formula 3 or World Series or whatever I have driven - where everyone has the same car and pretty much the same opportunity from the team and car perspective - you can set a goal and say I would like to finish in the top three or win it.

"But because you don't really know where the teams are going to be in 2014, or how things are going to be, then you can't really set a goal like that. You just have to make sure you do everything you can.

"You have to focus on yourself and do everything you can to make sure that your bit is fine."

LEARNING FROM HIS FATHER

Perhaps Magnussen's biggest strength is that he has the intelligence to look at where things have gone wrong in the past - with his predecessor Perez, for instance - and make sure he doesn't make the same mistakes.

"Hopefully it will be different," he says of the fact that Perez and McLaren never fully gelled.

"You learn from the bad times and the tough times, and surely McLaren is a team who are used to winning and they will continue like that."

The lessons learned from the experience of his father Jan are also important. Magnussen Sr had an incredible natural talent, famously winning 14 out of 18 races in the 1994 British F3 Championship to beat Ayrton Senna's record from '83. He was the next big thing and made his F1 debut for McLaren in the 1995 Pacific Grand Prix.

Yet despite the obvious speed, he and F1 were never comfortable bedfellows. His fun-loving character was one that never sat well with the perfectionist attitudes of his two F1 team bosses, Ron Dennis and Jackie Stewart.

His was a career that could have produced so much more if he'd had someone hammering home to him that he needed to up his work rate off the track to do justice to his abilities on it.

Kevin has drawn lessons from his father's time with McLaren © LAT

Magnussen Jr has spent a great deal of time discussing what happened with his dad, and his work ethic and intelligent application to the job are evidence that he has taken on board the lessons.

"I think he was just very honest and completely open about his life, and he didn't have anyone to guide him or tell him what he should or shouldn't do," says Kevin of his father, who was 2013's GT champion in the American Le Mans Series. "So he was himself - a completely honest guy.

"I'm honest too, but I'm trying to do what's right and trying not to do what's wrong. I think maybe he was not educated well [in the ways of F1]. It's a shame, because from what I hear he was a really great talent. I know that he still is!"

His father's inability to convert that talent to F1 success likely gives Magnussen great motivation not to waste the opportunity given to him by his own ability.

And it also allows him a good sounding board for when things get tough for him on track.

"I always ask him questions and I like hearing about his career and all that, but I have to do my own thing," he admits.

"I have to make my own way. I've already gone a different way, but it's important that you listen to a guy like him because he obviously has achieved good things and has some good experiences. Definitely I can learn from him."

Magnussen seems to have the right blend of on-track speed and off-track attitude to give it a damn good shot at McLaren. There's no hint that he believes things will fall into his lap.

"This is a massive thing for me. I still can't believe it," he says. "I wake up in the morning and panic a little bit about if it's a dream or not. But I know what I have to do. This is my chance."

THE SECOND PLACE THAT CONVINCED McLAREN

Former McLaren boss Ron Dennis once famously said that second place was first of the losers. But in current team principal Martin Whitmarsh's eyes, it was a runner-up spot for Kevin Magnussen last year that convinced him the Dane was ready for Formula 1.

At Monza's opening round of the Formula Renault 3.5 Series, Magnussen was involved in a frenetic battle with expected title rival Antonio Felix da Costa for the lead of race two.

On top of his speed, Magnussen's mentality has impressed McLaren © LAT

There was little separating the pair in terms of pure pace, so when leader da Costa made an error and ran wide at the exit of the second Lesmo early on, Magnussen seized the opportunity and drafted brilliantly past the Portuguese into Parabolica.

Da Costa knew that if he let Magnussen get away then the race was lost, so he tucked under his rival's rear wing on the run down the start-finish straight and launched a very aggressive attack into the first chicane.

Magnussen briefly blocked to the inside but, after da Costa switched left, he decided that discretion was the better part of valour and elected not to dispute the position with too much vigour.

Da Costa swept through to win, and Magnussen's disappointment at losing out was clear to see on the podium. Yet that afternoon proved to be a defining one for McLaren.

"Kevin of old would have seen da Costa coming, would have closed the door and 'bang'," reckons Whitmarsh. "Instead, Kevin saw him and just let him through, and it went against all his instincts.

"I rang him immediately and said, 'Kevin, that is the most impressive thing I've ever seen you do. The guy got past you but you didn't have the choice. That's part of the learning process. We know you're lightning quick, you now have to learn how to win a championship.' And that's what he did."

Magnussen believes one of the big things he learned during 2013 was the requirement to think about the bigger picture, rather than simply driving flat-out at every moment.

"My goal this year was to not take stupid chances, and that would have been a stupid chance to take," he says.

"He won the race and I wasn't happy - you didn't see me smile so much on the podium. But I did the right thing, and the year was about trying to think more, and not driving with my emotions too much."