There were mixed fortunes for Haas F1 Team in Qualifying for the Hungarian Grand Prix today after drivers Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen qualified ninth and fifteenth respectively.
Grosjean admitted that although he was pleased with his performance, continuing in this way for the rest of the weekend may be difficult.
“The old girl made it into Qualifying 3, she was limping a little at the beginning, but eventually she got there. It’s been a tough weekend to be fair on her.” he said.
He added that things were made more difficult than they needed to be as the team was the running the same amount of downforce as they had been last time out at the Hockenheimring.
“We’re running the same downforce we had in Hockenheim, just because that’s the maximum we’ve got. Here, obviously, it’s not enough – it’s tricky.
“Qualifying 1 was very difficult, Qualifying 2 things got a bit better, then Qualifying 3 we really extracted the maximum we had.”
The Frenchman said his main concern was in regards to the race, as their lack of downforce will have a detrimental effect on the life of their tyres.
“I’m worried for the race, we’re missing a lot of downforce to get the tire to stay alive for a long time.
“It’s a track where it’s difficult to overtake, so I’ll get my elbows out and see where we can finish tomorrow,” said Grosjean.
Qualifying did not do as well for Grosjean’s team-mate Kevin Magnussen, who will start the race in fifteenth place.
“We were fourth in Qualifying 1, then fifteenth in Qualifying 2. I don’t know what it is, but this car is swinging so much, up and down,” said Magnussen.
The Dane said he found it very difficult to get into the tyre window.
“The window is so small, even in qualifying – we saw that in Austria. I was struggling to get out of Qualifying 1, I got through just about, same thing again in Qualifying 2. Then in Qualifying 3 I was fifth. The car can go in and out of its window even in one session. It’s very difficult at the moment.
“It worked perfectly for Qualifying 1, then for Qualifying 2 there was no grip. There was some traffic on my out lap, but that shouldn’t be such a big deal to affect our tyre window.
“We’re really just trying to learn and analyse from these sessions, but it’s tough. So, I start fifteenth tomorrow on a track that’s very difficult to overtake,” said Magnussen.
Despite the mixed results for the team, Team Principal Guenther Steiner remains positive.
“Not a bad Qualifying. I think we showed again we can get good laps in.
“Unfortunately for Kevin (Magnussen), his fastest laps in Qualifying 2 were compromised by some tail winds, so he didn’t make it into Qualifying 3.
“Romain (Grosjean) qualified solidly in ninth. For how we’re struggling, we actually did pretty good,” said Steiner.
