Kevin Magnussen is convinced that he could have finished qualifying in Jeddah in fifth place, but during Q3 he began to experience pain in his neck and therefore had to settle for tenth place on the grid.
After a year out of F1, Magnussen had very little time to adapt his training schedule, having signed up to race with Haas just over a week into the World Championship.
Although he had no physical problems in Bahrain, the forces at play when driving on the Jeddah track pushed him to the limit during qualifying.
The Dane, however, believes that he could have encountered these difficulties earlier, had his mileage not been limited by the problems suffered by his car on Friday.
“I am happy to have lapped just on Friday, because otherwise my neck would have been ‘finished’ before qualifying,” said Magnussen.
“My neck gave out in Q3, I couldn’t drive anymore, so it’s tough. When you’ve been out of Formula 1 for a year and you get to a track like this, it’s tough. It’s not an attack on the track: simply, I’m not ready for this. “
“I am happy to have one of the best physiotherapists in the world here with me (Thomas Jorgensen). I hope he will be able to work one of his magic.”
Kevin Magnussen, Haas F1 Team
Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images
Magnussen admitted that as the race progresses he will likely be forced to rest his head on the headrest of his Haas, as he has already done in Q3.
“You put your head on the headrest, but you lose a lot of feeling with the car and you also look in the wrong direction, so it’s not the best.”
“But that’s what I was forced to do, otherwise my neck wouldn’t have held up. So yes, the car was fantastic, I think it was fifth, but I couldn’t do better than tenth.”
“I had never ridden on this track before and did three laps in FP2, then I had a normal FP3. It’s not great but, as I said, I like the track a lot, so I found the pace pretty quickly.”
Magnussen then said it would be frustrating to see his race compromised by this problem.
“Definitely, because I think this is one of my tracks and the car is also just fantastic here. I hope I can be in good shape in the race, so that I just have to bring out all my desire to fight.”
“In the race you go a little slower and that should help me a lot. But corners like 6, 7, 8 and 9 are hell when you haven’t driven a Formula 1 car for a year.”
Magnussen later revealed that he was concerned when he saw box-mate Mick Schumacher’s crashed car during Q2, slowing down to check how the German was doing.
“When I saw where he had lost it and how he had lost it, the corner was really bad and there is only the wall. Then I saw that the car was really in pieces.”
“It must have been a crazy accident for him, but it’s also crazy that you can get out of such an accident well. I’m really grateful for the safety of these cars, which will allow us to pat Mick on the back tonight.”
Finally, when asked if he had any concerns related to the track, Magnussen said: “I’m not the right person to ask. This is racing, when you see such accidents it hurts a lot and it’s terrible to see. he’s a guy in there whose conditions you don’t know, so it’s a big relief when you feel he’s okay. “
“But honestly, this is one of the best tracks I’ve ever driven on. And I wouldn’t change it. Of course, if we could make it safer it would be great, but I don’t know.”
Kevin Magnussen, Haas VF-22
Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images
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