Kevin Magnussen, all things considered, had a decent result at the Imola GP this past weekend. While the Dane did not score points, he made up 6 places over the course of the race after he passed a number of cars in the second stint and ended up in P12 at the end of the race, right behind teammate Nico Hülkenberg.
While this would sometimes be disappointing, Magnussen’s wretched qualifying saw him start P18. This was thanks to getting blocked by Oscar Piastri in Q1 when a spot in Q2 looked very likely. Moving up to P12 was a good result in the end.
The Dane can take confidence from this as he fights for his F1 future. As Magnussen’s contract expires at the end of the year, he will need to prove his worth if Haas wants to re-sign him for next season and beyond.
As Magnussen was discussing his race, the highlight was his stint on the hard tyre, explaining how he could almost keep in contact with the Ferrari of Carlos Sainz in the closing laps. He had done 37 laps on mediums and conceded he probably a little bit too long on those tyres.
“Yeah, (the stint was) probably too long, but we didn’t know the pace was going to be that good on the hard. It was very, very good.
“I mean I was able to almost follow the Ferrari. Not quite, but I was not that much slower than them.”
The 31-year-old passed the Saubers, Ocon and Ricciardo in the closing stages as he ended up finishing just 8s off Yuki Tsunoda in P10.
“Didn’t cruise by the traffic, but got everyone done very easily.
“Had super good pace that stint, so I wish that stint had been a bit earlier. We made it back into the middle of the field, close to the top ten, and that’s all we can ask for from yesterday’s qualifying.”
Magnussen was also running on thin ice. He currently has 10 penalty points, 2 away from a race ban. He had a good fight with Zhou Guanyu for a number of laps, and when asked if he was thinking about penalty points during that fight, he gave a quick and honest response: “Didn’t think about it.”
