Haas Comments on Their Wild Ride at Australian GP: Stellar Performance and Heartbreaks

Hulkenberg shines with a strong finish as Magnussen's hopes dashed in a chaotic race in the Australian GP

The Australian Grand Prix saw a mixed performance from the Haas F1 team. Magnussen suffered a tire failure late in the race, while Hulkenberg secured his first points of the season. Hulkenberg drove consistently and finished seventh, despite losing out to Norris and Perez. However, Hulkenberg did stop after crossing the finish line, raising concerns about his car's reliability. It was an unfortunate race for Magnussen, who had to retire after clipping the wall and ripping off his rear tire.

Nico Hulkenberg, 7th

“It was wild and a bit messy at times. We’ll have to look through everything that happened as there were a lot of things happening. I had a super start the third time around on softs and came through to P4, so it’s a shame there were a few incidents and then the race was red flagged. There are a lot of positive learnings again and I feel there are a lot of good things happening. I’m refreshed, in a very positive mindset and really enjoy working with the team and experimenting with the car. We have very good momentum and that’s what we want to take into the next races.”

AUSTRALIAN GP RACE RESULTS

Kevin Magnussen, DNF

“I brushed the wall at the exit of Turn 2 and the rim broke, the tire came off and I had to stop. I didn’t even feel it so it definitely wasn’t something that felt big in the car, but it was enough to crack the rim and take the tire off. It’s unfortunate, we were in P12 I think at that time and it didn’t look like I was going to be able to score points. We got unlucky with the first red flag as we had just pitted from P11 and we seemed to be quicker than the next couple of cars so I was quite confident at that stage of the race. Then we pitted under the safety car and just afterwards, it turned to a red flag. Everyone put their tires on to go to the end of the race and we were last. It wasn’t my day but it seemed like the car had decent pace so I’m encouraged by that and we’ll push next time.”