Whereas team-mate Romain Grosjean was able to finish inside the top ten in both free practice sessions on Friday, Kevin Magnussen had a less successful day in the cockpit of his VF-17.
The Dane completed twenty laps of the Albert Park circuit in the first session but could only finish seventeenth fastest, while a water leak cost him the majority of the second session, running only eight laps and finishing nineteenth fastest, 3.659 seconds down on the pace set by Lewis Hamilton at the front and 1.843 seconds down on Grosjean.
Magnussen admitted to being frustrated by what happened, but the Haas F1 Team driver says that seeing his team-mate have a strong day gives him at least some positives to take away from the day.
“It was a frustrating day. I didn’t really get much out of it,” said Magnussen. “We’ll investigate and, hopefully, find the issue.
“We’ll see what happens tomorrow. We don’t know what the weather’s going to do. It might rain and everything will change anyway. Let’s see what happens.
“It’s good to see, though, that the car is competitive. That’s very exciting for the season. That’s the positive to take from today.”
