Kevin Magnussen followed up on the Haas F1 Team‘s impressive pre-season by qualifying sixth for the 2018 Australian Grand Prix.
Magnussen narrowly beat his Haas team-mate Romain Grosjean to aid the American team to its second ever double top-10 qualifying result. More encouraging for Magnussen was the reliable performance and handling of his VF-18.
“The car was nice to drive in qualifying,” said Magnussen. “It was just there, and performing. I was able to push brake points – get off the brakes earlier and earlier with every lap.
“It wasn’t doing anything unexpected, which was really nice.”
Haas has emerged as leaders of the ultra-competitive mid-field and Magnussen is clear that he and team need to capitalise on their early season qualifying efforts.
“I’m looking forward to tomorrow starting in P5. We have some quick guys behind us, and we’ll have to do well to keep it that way,” said the Dane.
“We’ll be doing all we can to get a good result. We need a solid start to the season and we need to capitalize on today’s qualifying result.”
