Magnussen delighted at ‘lucky’ first points

Despite saying that they were lucky to get their first points of 2016, Renault’s Kevin Magnussen has insisted that it wasn't the only reason they were able to place seventh in Russia.

After the carnage that erupted on lap one, which saw Ferrari Sebastian Vettel and Force India Nico Hulkenberg retire, Magnussen took advantage of the chaos and was running in P10 from P17 after the first lap.

With Red Bull duo Daniel Ricciardo and Daniil Kvyat falling behind as a result of the chaos caused by the latter, the Dane was able to fight his way to P7.

"We were quite lucky with a lot of people not finishing and crashing out," he explained after the race on Sunday.

"But all in all we did a really good job today, with a perfect pit stop, and got past Ricciardo and Grosjean with the strategy.
Magnussen thinks the team still has a lot of work to do on the car, especially in utilising its performance over one lap.

"[Saturday] wasn't perfect, but it's more a function of our understanding of the tyres than the car itself. In the race, with the high fuel it's generally easier to keep the tyres alive. That shows where our car is and it's a bit better than in qualifying.

"We will focus on qualifying and improve in the future but right now this is what we have and P7 today is satisfying. Hopefully this is just the beginning of what we'll see in the rest of the season."