‘We look like a bunch of legends,’ F1 Twitter completely lose their minds as Kevin Magnussen takes first ever pole for Haas at the Brazilian GP
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Kevin Magnussen and Haas celebrate after securing pole position at the 2022 São Paulo Grand Prix (IMAGO / Motorsport Images)
The unthinkable happened in São Paulo today: Kevin Magnussen, in a Haas that has scored 2 points from France onwards, took pole position for the first time in his career in rainy conditions, helped on by the red flag brought out by George Russell beaching his Mercedes. It’ll be safe to say that this result (first ever pole for both team and driver) took the roof off of the Haas’ garage, and even Twitter.
Magnussen has been strong in the wet qualifying sessions all year, and he showed that here too, with good pace all throughout the session, but even then, no one could have predicted this. What makes it even more bizarre is the fact that his teammate, Mick Schumacher is on the absolute opposite end of the grid at P20. This result is surely not ideal for his 2023 seat hopes, even if Magnussen has ‘backed’ his performances.
The Danish driver was the first one to leave the pits (since Haas’ garage is right at the pit exit), and so he benefitted from this as well. He set a tidy enough lap (and a fast one as well, 0.203 seconds faster than Max Verstappen), and then the red flag did the rest for him. While he is highly unlikely to repeat this sort of result in the sprint race, or even stay in the top 3, he and the team will definitely give it a go.
Haas and Kevin Magnussen certainly look like ‘rockstars’
Haas did not score any points at all in 2021. While they came out guns blazing at the start of 2022, that soon faded away, and now, they are in a fight for eighth place with AlphaTauri. The team’s last points finish before Kevin Magnussen’s P9 in Austin was back in Austria, where they got double points to finish. But pole position is something else entirely, and the delight was clearly visible on everyone’s faces.
While some fans aren’t very pleased with the circumstances of the pole position, generally, most people cannot be happier with Kevin Magnussen being on pole position. The reaction is very positive, and a return of the old memes is also seen.
Lewis Hamilton has 103 pole positions, but this season, his total has been 0 – the same goes for the wins total for him and Mercedes. Who would have predicted before the start of the season that Kevin Magnussen would be in pole position before Hamilton?
The Dane’s former teammate, Romain Grosjean, also congratulated him and the team.
While Magnussen’s qualifying session went far better than he would have expected, and the best it possibly could, things were less amazing for his teammate Mick Schumacher, who went out in Q1, something that is definitely not going to help his chances against Nico Hulkenberg [who coincidentally has also taken the only pole of his career (yet) in Interlagos].
If qualifying was horrible for Mick Schumacher, it certainly wasn’t great for Charles Leclerc. He was the only driver who went out on the intermediate tyres – something that did not work out for him. While he decided to give it a go anyways, it became apparent he didn’t have the pace, so he came in for soft tyres. Too little, too late. The red flag from George Russell’s incident meant he never had a chance to set a time on the slick tyres, or at all.
Not only Leclerc, Russell’s incident even compromised the qualifying sessions of his teammate Lewis Hamilton, in addition to Sergio Perez. The three of them will start P8 to P10 (Hamilton to Leclerc) on the grid for the sprint race, which is recoverable, but surely not what they would have wanted. While the influence of the incident is undeniable, Kevin Magnussen did all he could do and all he had to do, and he has reaped the reward. He surely got what he wanted from the qualifying session – and more.
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Aniket Tripathi
(1002 Articles Published)