Kevin Magnussen scored the Haas F1 Team two valuable points in the Austrian Grand Prix Sprint race, after holding-off his team-mate for the entirety of the race.
Magnussen will start Sunday’s race from seventh, after a solid Saturday afternoon by the Dane. The Danish driver kept ahead of Mick Schumacher all Sprint, and seemed to be working with his team-mate to ensure their positions remained safe.
Magnussen kept Schumacher within DRS range of him for all but the final three-laps, where it appeared there was some miscommunication from the Haas wall.
Nevertheless, Magnussen is very happy to have scored points after not expecting much from the Sprint race.
“I didn’t expect that we would be able to do that, especially after this morning in practice. It didn’t look good, it didn’t feel good, so we made some changes but the cars are under parc ferme so it’s very limited to how much you can change. The changes worked and the pace was more of less back for the race. We’ve got two points so I’m very happy and we can certainly fight for points tomorrow given yesterday’s performance. I’m looking forward to another try tomorrow.”
“The battle with Lewis [Hamilton] was quite fun” – Mick Schumacher
Schumacher was furious after the Sprint, after losing the final points position to Lewis Hamilton. The German was angry that the team allowed Magnussen to get over a second ahead, leaving the young driver vulnerable.
It was a bitter pill for the German to swallow, after defending incredibly all race from Hamilton and Sergio Pérez. Schumacher will start the main race from ninth-place at the Red Bull Ring.
Despite the disappointment, Schumacher enjoyed his battle with Hamilton.
“I think the battle with Lewis was quite fun. It’s surprising to see that we were able to fight for that long, and even the Red Bull behind us wasn’t that much quicker, so that was a nice feeling. I think that we could’ve had points today but we didn’t.”
