Kevin Magnussen was relatively happy with his performance during qualifying for the Chinese Grand Prix after taking twelfth on the grid on Saturday, feeling it was one of his better qualifying efforts for a while.
The Danish Haas F1 Team driver was less than a tenth of a second shy of advancing into the top ten shootout, which was considerably better to what happened during qualifying in Australia, and as such he feels he cannot be unhappy with the result.
Magnussen believes the team should be competitive in race conditions on Sunday, although he admits that should it rain then anything could happen at the Shanghai International Circuit with very little knowledge of Pirelli’s 2017 wet tyre compounds.
“I’m fairly happy. We were about half-a-tenth from Q3 and that’s the best qualifying I’ve had for a while,” said Magnussen. “I can’t be unhappy with that. It’s obviously a little bit annoying not to get through when the margin is so small, but the lap wasn’t bad, so it is what it is.
“I think the car is competitive, especially in race conditions. It’s a good car. If it’s raining, we have no idea how it’s going to be. We’ll see how it goes.”