Relegation in the constructors’ standings
The close points zone and the eighth place conquered by Alexander Albon in the Dutch Grand Prix generated a double negative effect at home Haas: in addition to the disappointment for the missed target of the Top-10, the US team will be present at the next Italian GP in eighth position in the constructors’ championshipthanks to the placement of the driver of the Williams which allowed the Grove team to distance its rivals by 4 points, maintaining the seventh position alone.
The advantage eliminated by the Safety Car
Yet, in the opening stages of the race at Zandvoort, the strategy implemented with Kevin Magnussen seemed to relaunch the Danish driver towards a possible conquest of a result among the top ten, then failed with the 14th place finish for several episodes that occurred during the 72 scheduled laps: “I think we did a good job at the start of the race with the conditions and managing them well – commented – we got up to seventh position, I think, then everything petered out and there was a The Safety Car didn’t help us because we lost all that advantage we had given ourselves with the right choices. We fell from seventh place outside the points and it’s a shame. It’s even more frustrating when you manage to get into the top 10 and then you don’t have the pace to be there. We will continue to work and today we showed that we are doing our best and that we will succeed when the opportunity is there, but we need more pace.”
Lap 17/72: The Safety Car is deployed after Sargeant hits the barriers. #HaasF1 #DutchGP pic.twitter.com/5f6VaZtXSZ
— MoneyGram Haas F1 Team (@HaasF1Team) August 27, 2023
Slick in the rain
Slightly ahead in the standings Nico Hulkenbergarrived in 12th position but also disappointed with the outcome of the race: “It was a very dynamic race and the last five rounds were just a survival mode – He admitted – I think there were only two of us, Bottas and I, who decided to sticking out in slicks when the rain started, which was not the right decision in hindsight. I lost quite a bit of race time in those two laps so we missed an opportunity there. After that, you run your race, but it was hard to gauge where you were, so I did my race. The pace, from what I could see, was good in midfield but obviously not enough to do anything up front. We have collected a lot of data with the new front wing that we now need to study and understand more and hopefully we can optimize it.”
#Magnussen #Strategy #ruined #Safety #Car #FormulaPassion