Minichamps 1:43 Haas VF-23 – Kevin Magnussen, Bahrain GP 2023 Art. 417230120

A 1:43 model of the Haas VF-23 as raced by Kevin Magnussen at the 2023 Bahrain Grand Prix, in the MoneyGram Haas F1 Team livery. Resin, in a protective display case.

He was called back with a week's notice

Magnussen's Formula One career had ended in 2020. He spent 2021 racing sports cars in America for Chip Ganassi and had signed with Peugeot for the World Endurance Championship. He was, by every reasonable account, finished with Formula One.

In March 2022, days before the season began, Haas terminated the contract of Nikita Mazepin following the invasion of Ukraine, and had no driver. Magnussen took a phone call, got released from Peugeot, flew to Bahrain, drove a car he had never seen in a test he arrived at part-way through — and finished fifth in the race.

It remains one of the more improbable comebacks in the sport: a driver out of the category for fifteen months, in the worst car of the previous season, scoring more points in one afternoon than Haas had managed in the whole of 2021.

By 2023 he was a full-time Haas driver again, which is what this car is from.

The VF-23

Haas ran a car that was quick over one lap and destroyed its tyres in races — a pattern so consistent that the team abandoned its aerodynamic concept entirely for 2024. It finished last in the constructors' championship.

Specifications

Scale: 1:43 · Resin · Protective display case · Limited edition · Age: 14+