Kevin Magnussen scored a point with P10 at the 2023 Miami GP, his second of the season and Haas’s third appearance in the top 10 this season. But the Dane admitted he was “dreaming of more” after showing strong pace throughout the whole weekend and qualifying inside the top five.
Photo Credit: MoneyGram Haas F1 Team
Magnussen had a strong weekend in Miami, with Haas showing promising pace since the first free practice session. He and team-mate Nico Hulkenberg were both set to get through to the final part of qualifying on Saturday, but traffic issues cost the German his final shot at making the top ten.
The Dane did make it through, and made the most of an incident-packed Q3 session to take an excellent P4 on the grid for Haas on home turf. But with many cars out of position, including championship leader Max Verstappen, Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton, Magnussen was expecting to drop back some places, but admitted he was “dreaming of more” than a P10 finish and a single point after his qualifying heroics:
“Of course, I was dreaming of a little bit more than one point,” the Dane explained. “But still, what we came here to do is get points and finish in the top ten.”
The 30-year-old pointed out that all of 2023’s ‘big teams’ – Ferrari, Red Bull, Mercedes and Aston Martin – finished the race in the points bar Lance Stroll, making it a race with “no gifts” and harder to score points:
“It’s been a strong weekend very solid,” Magnussen said. “Obviously I was dreaming of a little more than one point today but I think all the big teams finished the race today and had no problems, so it was a pretty difficult race to score points – there were no gifts, as such.”
Magnussen had a difficult start and dropped down to seventh place by the end of the opening lap, before engaging in an almost race-long battle with Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari – one which he regrets, given the damage it did to his tyres to follow another car closely for so many laps:
“I had a shitty start, just got wheelspin immediately,” Magnussen recalled. “Then had a long fight with Leclerc which was tough on my tyres – probably should have looked after my tyres a little more in hindsight.
“It’s fun to race, of course. But I would have preferred to not race and just be in front.
“In terms of the pace we had, I think [that] actually the pace was good, but we had a little bit more degradation than the rest of the field.”
Hulkenberg failed to score following his difficult qualifying, and Haas now sits in 7th place in the constructors’ championship, with eight points to their name – two more than Alfa Romeo and six ahead of AlphaTauri.
