Kevin Magnussen kept it short after points miss in F1 US GP as Haas admit to miss-communication, as Nico Hulkenberg scores handy in one-stop.
It was looking good for Haas’ Magnussen in F1 US GP until his second stop which dropped him outside the points. When the radio call was made, it looked like an urgent problem but it was a normal pit stop – although there were discussions ongoing if they should or not.
They always had two-stop pinned before the race, but teammate Hulkenberg opted for one when he thought he can see-through comfortably. The team saw a bit more degradation on the side of Magnussen, but post-race they admitted that there was a chance that he could have held onto 10th against Williams’ Franco Colapinto.
The Dane tried to pass him on the fresher compound after his stop, but he was unable to do so despite the multiple attempts. He eventually had to settle for 11th and was visibly upset after the grand prix. He chose few words again when asked if the race was undone by strategy. “Yeah, seems like it, yeah,” said Magnussen, before noting that the discussion about one-stop was ongoing with his race engineer.
“We were talking about it,” he said. “It was on our list of potential outcomes but yeah, didn’t manage to.” When pressed further about it being frustrating to lose certain points, he simply said, “yeah”, and ended with a “no, yeah, I don’t know”, when asked about the pit stop call.
Just before the written press, he spoke a bit more when about his race and strategy by F1 TV. “Not sure you can call it unlucky, but that’s the way it is,” said Magnussen. “Didn’t get any points today, I think we had a good chance to do that but didn’t manage to.”
“It’s hard, you come out of the car, you go straight to talk to you guys, it’s better I go talk to the team first and see what actually happened.” After scoring points in sprint, Magnussen went empty handed in the main grand prix, when teammate Hulkenberg scored and made the one-stop stick in eighth.
They were looking at one-stop and it worked after Hulkenberg decided not to pit. There was graining and abrasion but once it went away, he had good pace to take the call to switch the pre-decided strategy. “In that moment, it didn’t make sense to go and sit behind everyone else in traffic,” he said to media.
“To be honest, mid-way in the first stint I was struggling with the tyres and it did feel that I could go that long but then a couple of laps later, the tyres really recovered and I managed to find back a lot of performance which was quite unexpected but that’s how it went.
“Graining, yeah, but more like some sort of abrasion and then the tyres clean up and then [the performance] come back a little bit. Yeah, I just had good pace from then on, on used medium in clean air, just made it stick the one-stop, yeah.
“We probably decided for one-stop, when we passed Lap 21-22, that’s…I felt that the tyres were in a good state, I was thinking that maybe I have a realistic crack of doing it,” summed up Hulkenberg, who hopes Haas can do the job when it matters in the next couple of events to stay ahead of Visa Cash App RB, whom they overtook in US GP in the fight for sixth.
“That would be nice, they will not go down without a fight, you saw it with Liam, I think he was on a used strategy too, they were quick today as well,” said Hulkenberg. “I think our package is competitive in the next couple of circuits too but you always have to do a good job, you always have to convert it when it matters, so that’s the key in the next few races.”
Haas team boss Ayao Komatsu, meanwhile, admitted to miss-communication on the side of Magnussen, where he thought double points was possible. “It was bit of a mixed result, but it was good to get P8 with Nico,” he said. “He executed a very good one-stop strategy, and considering the situation he managed the tires very well and communicated well.
“On Kevin’s side, it was almost the opposite as our baseline was a two-stop strategy and then there was some messy communication towards the end of the race. I feel that we should’ve scored points with both cars, although Kevin may have struggled to hang on top P10, at least he would’ve had a chance.
“If we had come away from here with P8 and P10, that would’ve been the best result, but unfortunately only Nico scored today. We got seven points out of the weekend, and two ahead of RB so that’s the positive. We’re now P6 in the Constructors’ Championship with five events to go, and we’re competitive, so we’ll go for more.”
Here’s how F1 US GP panned out
Here’s how F1 US GP sprint panned out
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