Haas F1 Team driver Kevin Magnussen delivered a strong points-paying performance Sunday in the season-opening Australian Grand Prix at Melbourne Grand Prix Circuit. He finished a best-of-the-rest sixth in the 58-lap race around the 5.303-kilometer (3.295-mile), 16-turn track. Teammate Romain Grosjean was unable to join Magnussen in the points, as a loose left-front wheel ended his race after 29 laps.
Romain Grosjean
“I don’t know what happened exactly yet. It just felt wrong. It’s not been a good day. Before all that I was happy and up behind Kevin. The new rules are great for following another car, but the tires are still what they were last year, as you push, you slide, then you lose grip. Even though we can follow easier than in the past, overtaking is still complicated. Overall, it’s a shame as we’ve looked strong all weekend long, we were strong in the race as well.”
Let’s go to the next one, car is fast ??#r8g #ausgp #f1 pic.twitter.com/aUGIPUuYgs
— Romain Grosjean (@RGrosjean) March 17, 2019
Kevin Magnussen
“I’m very happy, it was a good result. I’m obviously sad for team not to have both cars get to the finish. Surely Romain would have been in a good position as well, especially after we both had such good qualifying, so I’m gutted for his side that they didn’t get anything out of today. P6 for me is very good, I’m happy with the day. I made a good start and had a really good car from there. I was able to push the whole race and look after my tires. I’m really happy to start the year like this.”
Guenther Steiner
“Mixed emotions today. Deja-vu from last year on Romain’s car it looks like, a pit stop gone wrong. Last year, after Australia, we went 20 races – the rest of the season, without another pit stop issue. We’re a little bit unlucky here, we’ll have to investigate what happened, it’s too early to say right now. On the other side, Kevin finishing sixth is a great achievement for the team. We know the car is strong. This year we take eight points away from Melbourne, last year we were last going away from Australia. It’s better than 2018. I think with this car we can be strong in all the remaining 20 races.”
Great to be back out racing at the weekend!#BahrainGP can’t come soon enough ?? #HaasF1 pic.twitter.com/qEsmfZAlv9
— Haas F1 Team (@HaasF1Team) March 19, 2019
