Kevin Magnussen hopes to be in contention for a top ten Qualifying position on Saturday after a positive practice day at the Circuit de Monaco, although it was interrupted by a bizarre situation on Thursday morning when both he and team-mate Romain Grosjean were black-flagged.
Radio communication issues resulted in the Haas F1 Team asking the stewards in Monaco to black flag both drivers so they returned to the pits, which obviously lost them some valuable track time as the problem was rectified, but on track, there were a lot of positives to take from the day at a track the team has traditionally struggled on during their time in Formula 1.
Despite the disjointed running in first practice, Magnussen was able to complete twenty-four laps and finish eighth fastest, while the afternoon session saw him run fifty-four laps and finish an encouraging seventh, just 1.056 seconds off the session topping time of Mercedes-AMG Motorsport’s Lewis Hamilton.
“We lost a bit of running in FP1 due to a telemetry problem, but got running again, and got all our low-fuel work done,” said Magnussen. “That allowed me to get a good feeling for the car.
“We missed out on a few high-fuel laps, but we got them in FP2, so it wasn’t too bad of a Thursday. Between us we also ran on all the tyre compounds today, so that’s good. The car feels good in low-fuel, so we’ll see what we can do for tyre management.
“It’s a tough track to overtake on, so it’s not the main priority, but of course we want to be fast in race runs. So far everything’s going okay, and hopefully Q3’s a possibility.”
