Kevin Magnussen spent much of the Austrian Grand Prix wondering whether he would finish after a problem developed with the Ferrari engine in his Haas.
But despite suffering a misfire from lap 15 of the race, Magnussen picked up points for eighth place at the Red Bull Ring.“It was a slight issue that didn’t make me feel so good because I was getting very nervous it would blow up,” Magnussen told RaceFans and other media after the race. “It’s not the first time this year.
“But there was good pace in the car and even with that slight misfire every time I went on throttle it was still fast and I was able to still score points.”
Magnussen explained how he adjusted his driving style to cope with the problem. “About 15 laps in I started getting it and then it was just every time I went on throttle on very low revs. I had to use one gear lower in every corner, which wasn’t ideal.
“But I was able to finish the race, I was praying to God that it wouldn’t blow up and it didn’t so very happy.”
With Mick Schumacher taking sixth, Haas scored their second consecutive points finish with both cars.
Schumacher complained Haas left him behind his team mate in Saturday’s sprint race. Magnussen said he wasn’t instructed to let his team mate past during the grand prix, but didn’t put up a fight when Schumacher appeared in his mirrors.
“The way I see it is if he’s faster we need to work together as a team and I’m not going to block him and slow down the team as a whole,” he explained.
“I’m here to help the team. I’m not here to win the world championship right now, that’s not my position, hopefully one day that can come but for now I’m a team player. So I’m very happy that we scored double points today and if you had seen me blocking like mad, maybe we wouldn’t have scored both points.”
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2022 Austrian Grand Prix
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- Ferrari believe their performance deficit to Red Bull is now “negligible”
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BasCB (@bascb)
11th July 2022, 12:11
So that means it was 2 Ferrari engines with issues (the throttle in Leclerc’s car is almost certainly not related to the power unit, but rather to the pedal installment) again this weekend.
slowmo (@slowmo)
11th July 2022, 22:26
It does feel like Ferrari have gone extreme on their engine power knowing they can fix reliability for the next 4 years while everyone else is frozen with less power. Obviously there are rumours Mercedes have some power in reserve to unleash when there car is competitive though so they may end up not so far ahead. It looked like another turbo failure to me.
theRealMax (@millionus)
11th July 2022, 12:34
Weird how the cars react so different depending on circuit. 1 track Haas at the back, next they finish 6 & 8 .!
wsrgo (@wsrgo)
11th July 2022, 16:24
Weird his story changed, I thought he said lap 25 in the media peb
NS Biker (@rekibsn)
11th July 2022, 17:41
To get both Haas cars across the finish line is great. Especially given their early season issues.
To get both into the points is fantastic. A little drama just adds to it.
Hats off to the team and both drivers. MS deserves particular credit for turning his season around. We can hope it continues.
Betting the morale within the team is through the roof these days.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
11th July 2022, 20:12
Yes, this is the haas of the best times I’d say, fighting for these positions, remember for example australia 2018 where they kept behind verstappen as it’s not an easy track to overtake at, then they both had the wheelnut issue, but performance was great from the car and both drivers, now they seem to be in that position again.
Red Pill (@redpill)
12th July 2022, 5:41
@rekibsn I agree with @esploratore1, Sunday was the best weekend they’ve had in over four seasons and the second highest points amount of ever points scored in a weekend (14pts) in Haas’s history. The highest they scored was 22pts back in 2018 at same venue. Maybe Belgium could be another good venue for them as they’ve had scored good points there as well. The rest of venues is probably a crapshoot?
I think they have good reason to celebrate like rock stars this week as if they won the race. They pretty much solidified finishing 9th or better this season (I know it’s not exactly a high point). They’re currently in 7th place overall ahead of AlphaTauri in the WCC but I think it would be overly optimistic to think they would finish in that position and there’s a lvery long season to go. This weekend however did make the owner some very good prize money compared to previous seasons. I think if they finish in 8th overall they will receive an extra $20m-$30m more compared to last season? That should help pay for a couple of extra front wings and an extra chassis. And it could reward them with a decent sponsor.
Let’s hope they can score some more points this season.
Qeki (@qeki)
11th July 2022, 19:35
How did I miss it or was it even brodcasted live?