Kevin Magnussen blames Haas’ development for his poor form

Haas' upgraded VF-23 not the ideal car for Kevin Magnussen

Kevin Magnussen blames Haas’ development for his poor form

Kevin Magnussen (Credits: F1TV)

Kevin Magnussen is being seen consistently out of form this season. He stands at 18th position in the driver’s standings, four behind his teammate Nico Hulkenberg. Following his upsetting 19th position in qualifying yesterday, Magnussen claims that the evolved VF-23 will be blamed for his woes.

Kevin Magnussen says that he is struggling with the low-fuel and new-tire conditions, with which he is not familiar. He says that changing his driving style is very hard to change. Since the car’s upgrades are also not in tune with him, he finds himself in a ‘pickle’.

YouTube video

“Lots of inconsistency for me and as you’ve seen in FP3, I had purple sector one and then I’m the slowest on sector two, so going very extreme there. It’s almost like my usual strengths have become my weakness in this car,” Magnussen told Autosport.

 Mentioning his teammate Nico Hulkenberg who has been outperforming him this season, Magnussen said, “Nico is seeming to extract more out of the car [over] one lap, new tyres. And then, on high fuel, it’s different story. So, it’s a bit of a confusing one. But I’ll work on it.”

In case you missed it: Red Bull’s strategy costs Max Verstappen the pole position at the Hungarian GP, admits Chief Engineer

Haas subjected to a costly double fine after tire infringement

Guenther Steiner
Guenther Steiner (Credits: PlanetF1)

The FIA is known for the strict enforcement of its regulations in F1. One of these regulations is regarding the return of tires to Pirelli during a race weekend. Unfortunately for Haas, they found themselves short on one of these rules.

As FP1 was affected by rain and declared wet, an additional set of intermediate tires were provided to all the drivers. According to the regulations in this scenario, one set of used intermediate tires must be returned to Pirelli before the qualifying, both physically and electronically.

While Haas did return the tires physically, they failed to do the same electronically. The stewards called a team representative for a meeting, where it was decided in accordance with Article 30.5(g) that a five thousand euro fine was applicable. In Haas’ case, since they committed the breach twice, one for each of their drivers, the fine was doubled to ten thousand euros.

While Haas has had many discouraging incidents over the weekend, they head into the race with the positive note of Hulkenberg being on P10. As talks of a new contract are underway for him, Hulkenberg will be aiming to make the best out of his starting position to get some points for the team.

Discover More: