Kevin Magnussen: Not the average rookie?

From his perspective, making his debut this year might actually be an advantage for him as he won’t be swept away by the competition, considering everyone’s on a steep learning curve and that these rule changes have turned the grid into a more level playing field for 2014.

McLaren can also take respite in the fact that they have a clear advantage with a more reliable and powerful Mercedes engine, and following the struggles they have had last year, they know that 2014 is a huge opportunity for them to show that they can quickly get back to winning ways. In that process, they have had a shake-up in the team, which resulted in Ron Dennis being re-appointed as the CEO of McLaren Group and Eric Boullier replacing Martin Whitmarsh on the pit wall as Race Director.

Speaking to Craig Slater of Sky Sports News, McLaren’s CEO Ron Dennis said, “When it comes to joining this team, there’s a price. The easiest way to reduce that price for any driver is to provide them with a competitive car.”

Perhaps through all the customary diplomacy in his words, it can be inferred that McLaren are right now not in the winning position they want to be. Judging by pre-season testing form, Mercedes seem to be the clear favourites followed by Williams, who have made a startling recovery to become a part of the front-runners again, after a dismal 2013 campaign in which they had only managed a total of five points.

This makes Magnussen’s task of impressing with his results and achieving his goal of winning races even tougher. However, he knows that he has a team behind him that is willing to put their faith in him to enable him to achieve his goals in F1. In fact, there’s a buzz inside the team that they are so confident in his abilities to quickly adapt to F1, that he is being touted to have the second best debut for a McLaren driver since Lewis Hamilton’s historic 2007 season.

While replicating Hamilton’s level of success will be nearly impossible for Magnussen this year considering McLaren’s pre-season testing form, the belief within the team shows they know something about this guy that we don’t. Only time will tell if Magnussen can manage to live up to the expectations of McLaren.

There have been other drivers such as Nico Rosberg and Romain Grosjean who were extremely impressive in GP2 and other feeder series on their way to F1, but once they started racing in F1, they realized that F1 cars are a completely different beast altogether. They took years to adapt to the sport and become regular podium contenders. In fact, Lewis Hamilton holds the joint record of most wins in a debut season.

However, Magnussen has made it very clear that he is undaunted by the comparisons to the 2008 world champion. “The fact that Lewis did exactly what I’m doing now is a positive for me,” he admitted. “It shows that the team has been there before, and has already prepared a rookie for his Grand Prix debut. The fact that Lewis was so successful doesn’t raise the pressure for me. It just shows that it can be done, and that you can be successful as a rookie. That’s really encouraging.”

Make no mistake; this is a man who has a huge amount of confidence in his abilities and in the abilities of his historic team. This confidence is reciprocated by McLaren’s managing director Jonathan Neale. “During 2013, Kevin really knuckled down,” Neale explains. “He started to show all the attributes that, in due course, will make him a great driver.”

McLaren sporting director Sam Michael agreed: “Kevin’s arrival is really exciting for the whole team – he represents the future. When you have a rookie come on-board, somebody who’s full of energy and is desperate to prove himself, it creates a buzz within the team. People share his hopes and dreams. From a team point of view, it’s a fantastic move.”

Interestingly, his father Jan Magnussen also made his F1 debut in a McLaren car. During the 1995 Pacific Grand Prix which took place in Japan, Jan had filled in for Mika Hakkinen, who was suffering from appendicitis. He managed to qualify 12th, and finished the race in 10th place. However, that was his only race for McLaren.

Jan was again given a chance to drive in F1 by Jackie Stewart’s Stewart Grand Prix team in 1997 and 1998. However, both those years were plagued by retirements for him and he only salvaged one point in his whole F1 career. That result came at the highly dramatic 1998 Canadian Grand Prix, where he had qualified 20th but managed to finish 6th thanks to several incidents and multiple retirements requiring the intervention of the safety car.

Magnussen Jr. will certainly be hoping for better fortune and a longer and more successful F1 racing career than the one his father has had. Although we know very little about him personally, it can be said that Magnussen does well to contain his fire and aggression within the cockpit of the MP4-29. He seems to be quite a friendly and easy-going guy.

Going by his media interviews and his recent Q&A on Twitter, we know that he likes to indulge in water sports in his free time and that he loves Indian food. In response to a question from one of his followers asking him what he thinks is the best thing about living in the UK, he said, “Indian food, of course!”

If the buzz around his ability and his pre-season form is anything to go by, it is safe to say that F1 has found another good talent, perhaps on the lines of Robert Kubica. There’s nothing quite like a full season in F1 to validate a driver’s ability though. Surely, the F1 fraternity is hoping for a guy who does wheel-to-wheel racing with Jenson Button, just like Sergio Perez did in 2013. That’s the kind of racing that makes F1 more exciting for fans all over the world.

As the saying goes, time will tell, and luckily for us, we have less than a week for the season to officially begin at the Australian GP in Melbourne. So we can soon find out some of those answers we seek, in what is being touted as the most unpredictable season in F1 history.