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Haas driver Kevin Magnussen has been left to reflect on a "heartbreaking" result at the Australian Grand Prix. Before the pit-stop phase of the race, Magnussen and teammate Romain Grosjean were running in fourth and fifth respectively.
On lap 23, Magnussen pulled into the pits to fit the car with soft tyres, however, he wasn't long slowing down as one of his wheels wasn't attached correctly. The exact same problem happened coincidently with Grosjean only two laps later, and the team has been hit with a $10,000 fine for unsafe releases.
"A very tough one to swallow for the whole team with both cars not finishing in such good positions with so much anticipation coming up this race," said Magnussen. "Being in such a good position with both cars, it’s just so heartbreaking to finish like that. We will get on top again and we will fight back and do it all again."
Haas impressed teams up and down the paddock at pre-season testing, when it emerged that it could be dark horses for the 2018 season. After qualifying, it all but confirmed that Haas is in a strong position for the year ahead, with Grosjean saying they will forget about this result quickly if that is the case.
"Today I had a great pace. I am sure I could have stayed a bit more with the front runner if I had been in front of Kevin earlier in the race," Grosjean said. “We will analyse everything, understand what happened exactly, come back stronger as we always do.
"Right now everyone is down and we need to analyse everything to make sure if it’s a problem with the guns, or a problem with the mechanics. We didn’t have any problems in winter testing so it’s a bit strange. It’s a lot of points lost today, but if we can repeat that performance over and over, we are going to forget that one very quickly."
It looked so promising but unfortunately ended far too early. F1 is brutal sometimes. We’ll fight back in Bahrain! ?? @HaasF1Team
— Kevin Magnussen (@KevinMagnussen) March 25, 2018
Fergal Walsh
Grand Prix of Belgium
G. Zhou
3 members have this team as their favourite
Replies (5)
Login to replycalle.itw
Posts: 8,527
Two similar failures in a row on different tyres. That isnt a good thing, especially when they were racing Red Bull. Disappointing, yet it did spice up the show. But if this race was sorta representative, I'll enjoy this season!
mbmwe36
Posts: 533
For some reason my DVR didn't record the race initially, so I joined when Romain was waking back, and my first thought was they pulled a Force India when I saw the graphic that both were out at the same time.
It's so odd that something like this would happen to both cars. Any word in if they've changed equipment or something?
On other websites, there are people seriously speculating that this was done on purpose to help Ferrari! You can't fix stupid, I guess...
calle.itw
Posts: 8,527
It is weird indeed. AFAIK it wasnt really faulty equipment, but chances are they wouldnt tell us. I personally would, but you never know in a sport like F1.
ajpennypacker
Posts: 2,475
I couldn't believe Haas screwed up like that. People are getting pretty excited about Haas pace, but Haas does have a history of starring strong and running out of steam. The first race and second races of 2016 also showed Haas as the best of the rest. But they seem to end up having weird issues like chronic break issues, or yesterday. I think this was Haas strongest race this year.
Major Tom
Posts: 152
Its a real shame, particularly as they lack the resources to keep up with the development battle and are likely to become increasingly competitive as the season progresses.