Kevin Magnussen was left to rue mistakes on both of his qualifying laps at Albert Park on Saturday, feeling the car was better than seventeenth on the grid, especially with Haas F1 Team team-mate Romain Grosjean up in sixth.
Racing for the American outfit for the first time this weekend, the Dane was on course to make it through to Q2 on both of his runs before errors at turn twelve cost him time both times, meaning he was unable to progress.
Magnussen now knows he has a lot to work to do on Sunday in order to fight for points, but feels the VF-17 is showing good competitiveness this weekend in Australia.
“Went off the track in turn 12 on both of my laps – really annoyed with that,” said Magnussen. “The car was there in qualifying. My lap was good until I went off.
“Both times my lap was good. I’m disappointed with that. We should’ve been a lot further up the grid. Now, I have to fight quite hard in the race. There’s still a lot that can happen and I will give it my best tomorrow.
“The good thing is the car looks competitive. Romain made it to Q3, which shows the potential of the car. I’m pretty sure I could’ve been very close to that if I hadn’t messed up and got off the track. I think I was just too keen to make up for my slow start to the weekend.
“I had a few places that I knew I had to sort out, and when you’re in qualifying trying to sort out things like that, it’s not optimal. It would’ve been nice to do that in practice, but that’s the situation I was in and I messed up by going off the track two times.
“I went for it and twice it went wrong. The first time I did it flat out to see where the limit was and I went off. The second time I asked for a little bit more front wing and I went a bit slower to get it right, but I didn’t get it right. It’s very annoying when you see how good the car is. I’m gutted not to be up there and give myself a better chance at some points.”
