Kevin Magnussen interested in running a NASCAR race sometime

NASCAR loses more and more fans each foreign driver and manufacturer they allow in

Ask Kevin Magnussen about NASCAR, and he just smiles. Gene Haas' latest Formula One recruit is well aware of his boss' championship stock car teams. The 24-year-old Dane, who replaced Esteban Gutierrez as Haas F1's second driver, was Stateside this week to see Haas' holdings up close.

On Wednesday, Magnussen flew to Haas Automation headquarters in Oxnard, California where he sat behind the wheel of a Monster Energy Cup car on display but "unfortunately" couldn't take it for a spin. "It's extremely cool," Magnussen said of the stock car. "But it's not easy to get in. It's nice because I grew up in motorsport, and you think you know everything, and then you come over here and you see those cars and it's very different."

Magnussen then flew to North Carolina to tour Haas F1 Team's U.S.-base and Stewart-Haas Racing next door. "It's very old-school racing but then extremely high-technology as well," Magnussen said of the NASCAR operation. "There's just as much science behind those cars as our cars, but still it's very different."

It didn't take long for Magnussen to express his interest in driving a stock car in the future. But before he could even think about following his father Jan's footsteps from F1 to NASCAR, Haas Team Principal Guenther Steiner put on the brakes. "At the moment, let's focus on what we're doing," Steiner said. "You have to do it right, or you don't do it. These things need to be done right. They cannot just be winged with this level of people.

"Everybody needs to get prepared for the season, then we'll see how we fall into it. We may consider it again. But at the moment, we just have to get as ready as possible for Australia and do a good job there." Steiner isn't saying never. Romain Grosjean was excited about the possibility of racing a stock car when he signed on last year. But Steiner admits Haas F1 teams have to show progress before the organization can even contemplate swapping drivers. Motorsport