Magnussen lauds ‘smallest team’ Haas as fourth quickest car

Kevin Magnussen says Haas were able to stake a claim to be the fourth fastest team on the 2018 Formula 1 grid after topping the midfield in qualifying for the Australian Grand Prix.

The Danish driver secured his best qualifying result for the US team with sixth place, which becomes a promoted fifth place after Daniel Ricciardo’s grid penalty, while teammate Romain Grosjean also impressed just one place behind.

The qualifying result saw Haas outperform the likes of Renault, McLaren and Force India in the tight midfield fight predicted in F1 this year and has hailed the feat by the team considered “smallest on the of grid” with one of the lowest budgets.

“We’ve got a car that is competitive here, fourth best car on the grid this weekend,” Magnussen said. “This team is the smallest on the grid. If not the lowest, at least one of the lowest budgets, and the least amount of people and resources. Yet we’ve got the fourth best car on this track in qualifying. That’s impressive. All the best to the team for that.

“What we need to do now is obviously have a good race tomorrow but it’s not a given that we will have a good race. We need to give it everything we’ve got.

“Then we got to continue this form and take it into the next races, because that’s also not a given.

“We had a good car in some cases last year, we had a competitive car that was sometimes the fourth best car. But we only had it may be once or twice.

“Today we fight in front of them, but we got to really work harder to try and get this level at all the races.”

Magnussen’s teammate Grosjean has echoed the sentiments having seen Haas confirm its pre-season testing pace and warns of more to come.

“I think we are happy, it’s a confirmation of what we have seen during winter testing,” Grosjean said. “We haven’t managed to use the full potential of what we have, but still we are fifth and sixth tomorrow.

“It’s amazing for the team and shows that hard work has been done and it’s been done properly. I think we have a clear idea of where we can improve, which is good to have and I think I can go a lot faster if we manage to keep in a bit the front end. We lost it a little bit with the temperature, so I’m happy with that. I know we’ve got more in the pocket.”