Haas’ Kevin Magnussen has revealed that his qualifying result in Spain might have been even better than eighth had he not had issues opening his car’s rear wing.
Perhaps due to the heat playing havoc with the systems, Sir Lewis Hamilton, Max Verstappen joined Magnussen in having one or two issues activating the rear wing on Saturday, and it cost the latter two the opportunity to improve on their grid positions of second and eighth respectively.
However, for the first time this season, Haas got both cars into the final phase of qualifying as Mick Schumacher qualified 10th, so it was all in all a good day at the office.
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“We got both cars into Q3, that’s been a bit of a target for the team, to have both in the top 10 in qualifying,” Magnussen told Sky Sports.
“We’re starting P8 for tomorrow’s race, it should be pretty good fun.
“We had a DRS issue all the way through qualifying [so] it could have been better, you always say ‘it could have been better’ but this time I’m pretty sure.
“I don’t know [how much,] I don’t think it’s that much. It was working but only after like five clicks and then you are already 100 metres down the straight so it was maybe a tenth [of a second] which could have just put me right there with P6/P7.
“Who knows? It was a good day anyway and [I’m] looking forward to tomorrow.”
The 29-year-old went with the common theme of tyre degradation when considering what the American outfit’s biggest banana skin might be in the race, but is optimistic that the VF22 is easier on its tyres than some other cars on the grid
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“As for everyone I think [the challenge is] going to be a hot track temperature,” he stated.
“It’s going to really cook the tyres but it seems like we are on the good side of that maybe. Our cooling has been pretty good this year and it doesn’t seem like we are overheating the rear tyres and front tyres that much.
“So let’s see if that’s true, we’ll get an answer tomorrow.”
Magnussen now leads Schumacher 4-2 in the qualifying battle, and has a sterling record of four Q3 appearances at the beginning of his return to F1 this year.