Is Magnussen ready for F1?

For the first time since Lewis Hamilton's explosive 2007 rookie season in Formula 1, McLaren will have a newcomer racing one of its cars next year. McLaren announced on Thursday that it has signed Formula Renault 3.5 champion Kevin Magnussen to replace Sergio Perez for 2014, after just one season at the team for the Mexican.

Perez has endured a patchy first season with the squad in a difficult car, while away from the F1 circus McLaren junior Magnussen has come of age en route to sealing the FR3.5 title last month.

Magnussen recently made the very good point that how you judge a driver's readiness for F1 has changed in recent years due to the lack of testing. Whereas Hamilton was able to complete around 10,000 kilometres of running before his debut, today's newcomers can expect to get roughly a quarter of that before their first race.

"If this was 2005 I would not be ready [having had so little F1 seat time], but these days I don't think you can ever be really ready in that sense because there is not enough testing," said Magnussen before news broke of McLaren's decision. "With the circumstances as they are now, I'm as ready as you can be."

Drivers on the brink of an F1 graduation are hardly going to say anything else, but to Magnussen's credit he knew he couldn't have made the step 12 months ago after his rookie season in FR3.5.

"It was not even worth talking about last year," he added. "Maybe I was quick enough, but I was not mentally ready and I had to grow in my racing."

It's the mental side of the Dane's game that has led to the most obvious changes in him this year. He has shown maturity, which in the cockpit allows him to turn his undoubted speed into consistent results. It is those traits that make his FR3.5 team boss, Jean-Paul Driot of DAMS, convinced that he is ready to step into F1.

Jan Magnussen driving the McLaren in 1995 © LAT

"Kevin has a great future," said Driot. "He is very good mentally, and this is the most important thing. He knows how to manage the attention. He is very focused and I don't think he will be distracted by all that Formula 1 brings. This is a very big asset.

"He is so professional, and always working on the details. And I think his best strength is his ability to deliver his best three sectors on the same lap to produce a laptime."

Whitmarsh has admitted to AUTOSPORT that the team's past links to Magnussen's father Jan, who made his F1 debut with McLaren in the 1995 Pacific Grand Prix, played a part in it signing him up to its junior programme in the first place.

However, he added that Jan's failure to make a mark at the top level - he scored one point in 24 starts for Stewart Grand Prix in 1997-98 - fuelled McLaren's determination to make it work this time with his son.

"Despite Jan's talent he didn't succeed as a Formula 1 driver," said Whitmarsh. "It was quite interesting and an illustration that you need a number of important components other than pure talent. When we noticed Kevin a few years ago, we could see the speed and the talent and we wondered if we could do a better job. It became an interesting challenge, and maybe he is more focused than his father was."

The younger Magnussen has spoken of learning from the mistakes of his father - in a column for AUTOSPORT earlier this year he said "I think he was enjoying life a bit too much!" - and it's something McLaren have been keen to motivate him with.

"I've been very frank with him about the talent his father had," said Whitmarsh. "It's been pointed out to him that being quickest isn't good enough, you've got to get the job done, win championships and this year we've seen that from the first round and he's done a great job."

Magnussen has admitted on several occasions that he had to work hard on himself towards the end of 2012 to focus on the bigger picture rather than trying to be fastest every time he was on track. McLaren could see the change in his approach this year, which netted him his first title since Danish Formula Ford in 2008.

That, coupled with his performances in two F1 tests over the past 12 months, has all contributed to the events of the last few days that forced Perez out of the door after just one season of racing in silver.

TOUGH LOVE KEY TO FR3.5 TITLE

Magnussen showed his class in FR3.5 © LAT

One of the key moments in Kevin Magnussen's 2013 season - and possibly his career, based on the effect it had - came behind closed doors in the early part of his relationship with DAMS in Formula Renault 3.5.

While team and driver had fallen for each other as soon as they joined up for a test in late 2012, by the time the season started there was a feeling that they were not quite pulling in the same direction. DAMS boss Jean-Paul Driot stepped in, and after some firm words of advice to Magnussen about co-operation, the building blocks were set for a convincing title-winning campaign.

"Kevin is a strong character, so it was not easy in the beginning," Driot told AUTOSPORT. "He was a little bit stubborn in the way he worked. We have some strong personalities as well, but we opened up and he understood that we were here to help him, not work against him. After that it built up very nicely during the year and you can see the results."

Magnussen added: "It wasn't easy. The team supported me well, and although it looks very consistent from the outside, emotionally it has been up and down. But we won this together, and I cannot describe how good that feels."

MAGNUSSEN'S FR3.5 SEASON IN NUMBERS

17 races
5 wins
8 poles
13 podiums
15 points finishes
3 fastest laps
Average finish 3rd
*stats do not include win lost due to disqualification.