There were mixed results for the Haas F1 team at the 2024 British Grand Prix. While Nico Hülkenberg had a successful one, collecting eight points after a P6 finish for the second consecutive weekend, his teammate, Kevin Magnussen – who had been running the older specification VF-24 – struggled, particularly in the later stages of the race on softs with graining, and eventually ended the race in P12.
When asked his thoughts about the race, the Dane stated that while he had expected it to be difficult due to his start from the seventeenth position on the grid, he felt as if the team had performed well for most of the race. He overtook Ocon, Guanyu and Ricciardo in the first stint, and took advantage of Ferrari’s poor strategy call with Leclerc to gain another spot, before everyone switched to inters.
“Well, we started P17 so it was always going to be a difficult race, but I think [that] we made really good progress in the first stint, overtaking people on the track, and [we were] looking really good.
“And then when the wet came and everyone [was] still on the dry, we made the right call to stay out there, and I think [the] pace actually was also strong in those conditions.”
However, he added that his performance in the later stages of the race had been affected by significant graining of the intermediate, especially the soft tyres, which he expressed had been put on “probably one lap too early”. The Dane would be overtaken by Logan Sargeant in that stint.
“I went onto the intermediate [tyres], and I was saving the tyre because I was hearing [that] more rain would come, but the track was pretty dry. So I was saving the tyre and the rain never really came so…
“Then we pit, probably one lap too early, onto the soft [tyres] and we were pretty slow on that stint so, I don’t know, good first two-thirds of the race and then [I] just grained on the soft. So yeah, I didn’t have a good run there.”
Though Magnussen did not run any features of the team’s new upgrade package, he spoke about its potential, referencing his teammate’s strong performance over the weekend.
The Haas driver described the upgrades as “encouraging” but expressed confidence in the VF-24’s overall performance, as he believed that even without the upgrades, Hülkenberg would have still finished in the top ten.
“I think it’s good to put an upgrade on the car and see it score points in the first race. Of course, it’s encouraging.
“We know on paper [that] it’s not day and night. It’s in the details, right, so it’s also a testimony to the car overall that we have. We’ve put a little bit more performance on here, but without it, Nico would have still scored some points. So, we’re [encouraged] and looking forward to more races.”
Magnussen added the performance of the upgrades was especially encouraging as new stuff brought by other teams had been disappointing and not performed as expected, especially at Ferrari, RB and Aston Martin.
He described this as being a sign of progress for the American-based team.
“No, it’s very encouraging. RB have brought upgrades that didn’t seem to deliver, Aston Martin, even some of the top teams. So yeah, it’s good that we’re making progress and hopefully we can keep it up.”
Haas currently sits seventh in the 2024 Constructors’ Championship, having narrowed the gap to sixth-place RB to four points. They’ve outscored the Faenza-based team by 20 points to 4 across the last two rounds.
