Kevin Magnussen made his comeback in Formula 1 at the start of this season, a rather unexpected one as the Dane was called in after Haas decided to cut ties with Nikita Mazepin and Uralkali.

The 29-year-old had raced in F1 from 2014 to 2020 and did one year in IMSA before being called back by Haas. Only one season went by, but the Haas he found is quite a bit different from the one he raced for in 2020 alongside Roman Grosjean.

That season the team had only managed to score a total of 3 points, while now they have 12 points only three races in – all scored by Magnussen - and a P5 finish at the opening in Bahrain.  

Quite a big step forward that is making his time in the car “a lot more enjoyable.”

“Having a competitive car is just so much more fun,” he commented when asked by MotorLat about his comeback with the team during a media session.

“I had a year out of F1 and getting this opportunity again was a big surprise. It made me appreciate being in F1 a lot more. I see it with different eyes this time around and I feel very lucky to have this opportunity.”

An opportunity that has been quite heavy on his neck – rather than his shoulders – so far, as the lack of a proper fitness training for F1 left him with a sore neck in Jeddah.

"Honestly, I haven't really done much training in the last year and a half, it's been pretty limited," he explained.

"I kept active, but I didn't think I needed to be that fit. So it's a bit of a surprise now, but I'm just training as much as I can.”

Magnussen is now working on finding a proper balance in training to be able to put up with the impact of G-force F1 drivers endure on track without any pain.

"There's no point training five hours a day, because you're just running yourself out of energy, and you need to recover as well to build fitness, but I'm really trying to optimise my time to find the right balance between training and recovery,” he continued.

"I'm glad I've got probably some of the best people in the world looking after me in Denmark, so I'm in good hands, but it's going to be a little bit of a tough journey to get back to full F1 fitness.”

"I'm also enjoying it. It's nice to be back in the good old routines: tough, but fun."