Guenther Steiner issues Kevin Magnussen an ultimatum to improve his performance

Haas boss Guenther Steiner has given Kevin Magnussen a five-race ultimatum if he wants to stay with the team in 2024.

The Dane did well against Mick Schumacher last year but is struggling to cope against Nico Hulkenberg.

Kevin Magnussen will sit in history as the only driver to take pole position without starting first on the grid, and George Russell the only driver to start first for a Grand Prix without taking pole. Thankfully we’ve stopped the madness.

Steiner has issued a challenge to Magnussen, whose contract is due to expire at the end of this year, to demonstrate improvement in the next five races in order to secure a new deal with Haas. Nonetheless, Steiner remains calm about the situation and has no immediate plans to consider other options for either of the team's current drivers beyond the designated time frame.

In the previous round held in Australia, Hulkenberg achieved an impressive seventh-place finish, while Magnussen's unremarkable performance resulted in retirement due to a peculiar crash at the exit of Turn 2.

Speaking about Kevin Magnussen's contract, Steiner said:

“Kevin is not in a happy place at the moment, being behind Nico. In the end it is all down to performance but, at the moment, I’m pretty relaxed about it. I want to at least give another five races to see where we are and then start to think about it.”

Kevin Magnussen was nowhere compared to Nico Hulkenberg in Australia, claims F1 journalist

📰: Guenther Steiner has given Kevin Magnussen five races to improve his form and secure a new contract for 2024. Magnussen has struggled with teammate Nico Hulkenberg outqualifying him in all three rounds. Steiner has challenged Magnussen to improve his performance to earn a new… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… https://t.co/1NOV1rRsM0

According to F1 journalist Scott Mitchell-Malm, Nico Hulkenberg made a strong impression with his P7 performance at the Australian GP held at the Albert Park Circuit in Melbourne in April.

Although he qualified in the Top 10 in each race since his comeback in Bahrain, the German driver failed to score points in the first two races. Nevertheless, his outstanding performance in Melbourne demonstrated that Haas made the correct decision in selecting him to partner with Kevin Magnussen for the 2023 season.

While appearing on The Race podcast, Mitchell-Malm stated that Magnussen could not match the pace of his teammate, saying:

"I think he showed in Bahrain weekend that he proved when Kevin Magnussen was going missing a little bit at the start of the year and arguably still was this weekend, miles off in qualifying and losing a massive chunk of time in the high-speed bits in the final sector just having to have so many confidence lifts and dabs of the brakes whereas Hulkenberg doesn't."

With Haas expected to be strong at the 2023 Azerbaijan GP this weekend, it will be interesting to see which of the two drivers comes out on top.