K-Mag ‘on eggs’, but Haas trouble ‘an outlier’

Jon Wilde
Kevin Magnussen ahead of an Aston Martin and a Williams. Melbourne April 2022.

Kevin Magnussen's Haas ahead of an Aston Martin and a Williams during the Australian Grand Prix. Melbourne April 2022.

Kevin Magnussen said he was “on eggs” at the Australian Grand Prix – but it had nothing to do with his diet.

After having to miss his Friday morning media commitments due to feeling nauseous, it would have been understandable if the Dane was watching what he ate in Melbourne.

But instead, he was referring simply to what happened during the race, with Magnussen finishing 14th to miss out on points for the first time since his return to Formula 1 this season.

Haas were generally a little bit off the form they had produced in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, where Magnussen enjoyed race results of fifth and ninth respectively to collect 12 points after a blank 2021 campaign for the team.

Adopting the reverse strategy to the majority of the field at Albert Park, with hard tyres from 16th on the grid, the 29-year-old duelled with his team-mate Mick Schumacher and both started and finished one place behind the German, 13th and 14th.

Just like in Saudi Arabia last time out, however, when he tried a similar strategy, the timing of a Safety Car period prevented Magnussen from making the most of the decision.

“It was kind of on eggs a little bit out there,” Magnussen told reporters afterwards. “But good fun, a nice track, bummed not to get points but we made a small gamble, I would say, with the hard tyres because we felt like we were faster than our position, which we were.

“But again, the Safety Car came and ruined completely the strategy and we know that’s the gamble – it’s happened two times now, so it’s a bummer. But we’ll take them next time.”

It was reported by Sky F1’s Ted Kravitz that paddock rumours had claimed Ferrari may have told Haas to turn down their engine over concerns the customer team had actually been doing too well, but more realistically Haas just got their set-up wrong – as Magnussen admitted.

 

“I think this was an outlier,” he added. “The starting set-up we had here wasn’t good and we were also struggling a bit with tyres because of this new tarmac, but we turned it around and we were able to get much closer to the pack in the race.

“We actually had pretty decent pace, outraced the Alpine of [Fernando] Alonso and he almost qualified on the front row, so looking at that it’s a positive.

“We were able to turn things around and we will score points next time.”

 

Haas fall back after early season form

Mick Schumacher and Kevin Magnussen both finished outside the points in Australia.