At the end of 2020, at just 28 years old and after only six seasons of racing in F1, Kevin Magnussen was turfed from his Haas seat as the team struggled for money. With no seats left on the grid, he had no choice but to move on.

Little did he know he would be lining up on the Australian GP this upcoming weekend (and in a rather competitive outfit too!).

“I really had got to terms with the fact that I wasn’t going to be driving F1 anymore,” he told the In the Fast Lane podcast.

“I’d had two seasons with Haas that weren’t with a competitive car, and I lost a little bit of motivation to be running around in P16 and not really fighting for anything.

“I was looking forward to getting back to winning races in sports cars and going for championships.”

He surely kept the promise he made to himself. In his first year away from Formula One, he won and got multiple podium-finishes in American sportscar racing, and he was signed up with Peugeot for the French marque’s return to Le Mans.

But then the unexpected: Haas suddenly had a seat available after ditching Nikita Mazepin halfway through pre-season testing. With the team’s finances stable — ironically, thanks to the dumped Mazepin’s year of funding — the American team wanted to reunite.

“I immediately felt this massive emotion and excitement,” Magnussen said. “I just said ‘yes’ because of that feeling.

“I was like, ‘I’ve got to do this, I’m too excited’. I had all these thoughts that I wasn’t going to come back, but I’m too excited to say no”.

His rapidity in preseason testing translated to a phenomenal first race in Bahrain, where he qualified seventh and finished fifth. Q3 and ninth in Saudi Arabia built further on his points haul.

The Comeback Kid is in town! 🇩🇰🇩🇰#HaasF1 #BahrainGP pic.twitter.com/luj96zcELZ

— Haas F1 Team (@HaasF1Team) March 20, 2022

It was like he’d never left — but for one, very painful difference.

“My neck was so stiff I couldn’t move it without pain,” he said, speaking about his Saudi Arabian Grand Prix weekend. “I had this nerve that got stuck, went into a spasm.

“That wasn’t great, but I expected it. When you don’t drive Formula 1 cars for a whole year your neck loses strength, and the only way it comes back is by driving Formula 1 cars again.”

After the first two races back-to-back, a weekend off between Jeddah and Melbourne was certainly welcome. But there was no time to relax for K-Mag.

“The priority is to train like hell, honestly I haven’t been training like a Formula 1 driver should”

“I did a bit of training and I was active, but I was doing loads of other things I wouldn’t normally do if I knew I was going into a Formula 1 season.”

Magnussen feels like a new man too. Because of how unpredictably the call to return to Haas came, he now admits being more motivated to move forward. Moreover, the motivation is due to the awareness of sitting in a much more competitive car – in stark contrast to the machine he left at the end of 2020

“I’m way more relaxed,” Magnussen said.

“Because this opportunity came the way it did, so surprisingly, I can’t help feeling so unbelievably lucky to be where I am”.

“I feel so much appreciation that I didn’t always feel before. There’s no frustration.

“I’ve been out of Formula 1 now and with a mindset of not coming back, closing that chapter. And now, because I’m back, I can race with no fear of losing this opportunity.

“I feel very comfortable with it. I can give it all that I’ve got, and if I mess it up, I don’t care.”

It’s a wiser Kevin Magnussen who’ll arrive in Melbourne.

“Sometimes you don’t have the car to win, and you’ve got to accept that and realise that the focus isn’t on winning right now, and that’s super-hard as an athlete.

“Ever since my childhood I was only focused on winning, because that’s what is going to get me to Formula 1. Every day when I got up, it was all about winning the next race or winning the current championship. That’s how I’ve grown up.

“When you get to Formula 1 you’ve had so many years of that mindset. Suddenly you’ve got to be clever around the fact you can only get P7 or whatever.

“If you’ve got the fourth-fastest car, then you’ve got to finish seventh at least. That’s going to be a win for you.”

That realism is a crucial skill in a tight midfield as we’re witnessing in this opening races. And with Haas riding a very positive wave, the Dane will be well placed to keep his and the team’s feet on the ground.

“If we’re lucky, we might get a podium at some point during the year — not that we have a car that’s fast enough to drive onto the podium, but we’re probably the best car after the three top teams, at least in these last two races,” he said.

“We all see how good the car is, and we’re on level with Alfa Romeo and AlphaTauri. Alpine is maybe a little bit behind in terms of car performance, but they’ve got two drivers that are performing superbly, so they’re going to be right there in the points.

“We know we need to beat those three teams to be in front of the midfield and that is the aim now, that’s the target. That’s a great thing.”