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Kevin Magnussen says new mindset behind FR3.5 championship lead

Formula Renault 3.5 championship leader Kevin Magnussen believes that his form this year is down to a change of approach for his second season in the category

The McLaren junior leads the standings by 29 points after seven of the 17 rounds this year, and he has only finished outside of the top three twice.

Magnussen believes his form this year is down to the lessons he learned from a difficult rookie season in FR3.5 in 2012.

"I'm just thinking about everything from last year, going through every race and thinking about every race that went wrong," Magnussen told AUTOSPORT.

"You can learn a lot from that. There's nothing wrong with having a bit of a bad season if you learn from it.

"I did learn a lot from last season and I'm happy I had a year like that. If it was an alright season it wouldn't have taught me as much."

The Dane believes that the main thing he picked up from last year was learning when to take risks, and he said that he was managing the risk when going wheel-to-wheel with Will Stevens in the closing stages of race two at Spa last weekend.

Magnussen was investigated by the stewards for putting Stevens on the grass on the Kemmel straight on the penultimate lap, and he then cut across the run-off at Les Combes in an unsuccessful last-ditch bid to defend the second place.

"It's taking a little bit of risk in certain moments and in other moments knowing when you have to push," he said.

"I've known Will for many years so I knew there wasn't as much risk because I could trust him.

"And at the end of the straight I could fight for the position because if it goes wrong you can use the asphalt run-off.

"It looked like a risky move, but there wasn't that much danger involved."

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