Haas’s Kevin Magnussen qualified in P15 for the Bahrain Grand Prix after being knocked out in Q2. Even though the Dane started from a lowly position, he had a decent race. The 31-year-old made up three places on the opening lap to run in 12th, and that is where he would finish.
Speaking post-race, Magnussen stated that he was quite happy with how his race went as none of the top 5 teams had any terminal unreliability issues during the races.
“I think we had a decent race. We didn’t score points, okay, we still need to find more speed to be regular point scorers, but we were two positions out, and nothing crazy happened at the front. So this was a pretty normal race. A decent result.”
Tyre degradation was a huge issue for Haas in races in 2023. However, a lot of work on it during testing and in Thursday’s practice sessions by completing a lot of long runs seems to have paid off. Magnussen did not fall back through the field on Saturday.
Nonetheless, he is wary that it’s only one race and wants more samples before feeling completely sure they’ve made the required step.
“I would say so [improve tyre degradation compared to last year]. I would say a little better.
“But again it’s one track, one tarmac, one set of conditions, night race, cold temperatures. Let’s see when we go to new tracks, also in daylight — next race is another night race.
“We still need to prove that this is the case and we’ve made progress — but certainly this year’s race felt better than last year’s race here.”
Should it turn out to be the case that Haas has found the solution to their tyre wear headache, Magnussen believes that other things can be worked on. The Dane had a costly first stop on Saturday, losing 1.5s to Stroll in the pit lane. It allowed the Canadian to undercut him.
“It does feel better. I feel like I’m on par with the guys I’m racing. So, in terms of tyre performance, I don’t feel disadvantaged today.
“We need to find more speed. We need to sharpen up our pit stops, lose less positions around stops and stuff like that.
“If this is the case and we have this tyre performance, then suddenly we need to look at other things that we weren’t looking at before. That’s a positive, and I think the work over the winter has paid off. We just need a lot more.”
In the closing laps, Tsunoda was chasing Magnussen. but he was told to swap potions with his teammate, Daniel Ricciardo, as RB F1 wanted to give him a chance to overtake the Haas driver. But the Dane fended him off and ended up finishing ahead of both the RBs.
