It’s become quite the theme for Kevin Magnussen to have special qualifying days in races taking place in the Americas in recent months.
Back in November last year, he claimed a memorable pole position at the São Paulo Grand Prix in mixed conditions. On Saturday in Miami, he secured a brilliant P4 in qualifying.
Photo credit: MoneyGram Haas F1 Team
The Dane crucially got a banker lap in before Charles Leclerc’s crash on the final runs brought the session to a premature halt.
“It feels good. It feels good,” was Magnussen’s instant reaction to Sky Sports.
“You know, it’s an important race for us. Home race for the team. All our big sponsors are here this weekend. This is a race we hope goes well.
“I got a bit lucky, but I don’t feel bad about that.”
The 30-year-old has had a tricky start to the year against Nico Hülkenberg as the German has generally had a decent advantage over his teammate in qualifying.
However, it was Magnussen’s turn to deliver today. He admitted in the post-qualifying interviews that his upgraded car has been working really well since FP1 on both low and high fuel.
“Yeah, I think this weekend we’ve just been strong consistently,” stated the Danish driver.
“Not only in terms of putting lap times, and I don’t think if you look at the results from each session it’s so good, but just the feeling was there from the very beginning.
“We put the car on track and it worked, and we haven’t really touched it apart from a little bit of tweaking.
“I think that’s been really good, and then we brought an upgrade that worked.
“High fuel yesterday was feeling good as well. I am positive but also realistic with such a competitive field.
“So, yeah, happy. P4 tomorrow, and hopefully we can finish it off and score some points.”
Asked why they look so much more competitive compared to Baku, Magnussen believes the track suits them more, along with the upgrade they brought to Miami.
“I mean, we put an upgrade on the car. We’ve got a new floor this week, and that seems to really help. Track-specific [as well], I think our car works a little bit better here, and we got a bit lucky.”
With such a strong grid position, it would be easy for Magnussen to say he doesn’t want rain tomorrow.
Nonetheless, he believes it can be fun if it occurs.
“Yeah, that [the rain] could spice things up, and I think I’d welcome that, of course. It’s always a little less wanted when you’re starting up front, but still, it’s fun if it rains.
“I don’t think we’re fourth fastest, but it’s nice to finish a little further up than the speed you have [in the car], so you can just nicely fall back into a natural position and finish it off like that.”
