Magnussen not surprised at Haas speed

Kevin Magnussen is not surprised as Haas are fifth in the constructors' championships and claims he knew they'd have a good season very early on.

Haas driver Kevin Magnussen claims he is not at all surprised by his side's speed this season and claims he knew they would have a good season ever since the first tests that took place in Barcelona.

Ahead of the Hockenheim race this weekend, Magnussen has been stating how proud he is to be part of the short history of the team as they fight to be the 'best of the rest'.

"It's a great achievement," Magnussen told TheCheckeredFlag.co.uk.

"The first three years of Haas F1 Team have been massively impressive.

"Everyone on the team can be proud of what's been achieved already. Of course, we're going to try and do better every year, but we're already at a level that is hard to maintain.

"I think in Barcelona (at testing) we realised that our car was pretty handy. Our expectations then were already quite high.

"I'm not surprised by this point to be fifth in the constructors' championship. We've got the potential in the car to be even higher than this. We should aim to keep this position, or even target one more position."

Magnussen believes that Haas can beat the Renault team to fourth this season, but need to improve their consistency.

"I think Renault is very consistent," Magnussen added.

"But we can beat them at times, and we have done many times this year. Most of the time we're level with them on pace, so it should be possible to keep fighting for this position all the way to the end."