Kevin Magnussen praised an “incredible job” from the Haas F1 Team following his fifth-place finish in the Austrian Grand Prix.
Magnussen’s fifth place, along with team-mate Romain Grosjean‘s fourth place finish, secured Haas their best-ever result in Formula 1 – and on their fiftieth race in the series, too.
Grosjean and Magnussen started sixth and eighth respectively and looked to be the “best of the rest” behind Mercedes AMG Petronas Motorsport, Scuderia Ferrari and Aston Martin Red Bull Racing. This wasn’t to be the case though, as reliability issues for drivers ahead of them launched them further up the grid and into top-five places – something Magnussen says the team wasn’t expecting.
“We’ve had a very good weekend. To challenge for top-five, we didn’t expect that.
“We finished both cars in the top-five, and that’s an incredible job from the team and I’m really proud of the whole team.
“We were struggling with blistering on the tyres – the whole of the soft stint. They blistered very badly. I managed that, and then had pressure from behind, so I had to push, but I had a good race.
“We’ve shown this weekend that we’ve got a good car. Actually, it’s not only this weekend – we’ve shown all year that the car is very competitive. We’ve just got to keep going like this.”
Haas’ twenty-two point haul moves them up to fifth in the Constructors’ Championship with forty-nine points – five points clear of sixth-placed McLaren F1 Team.
