16/07/2017
NEWS STORY
Haas F1 Team drivers Kevin Magnussen and Romain Grosjean finished 12th and 13th, respectively, in the British Grand Prix Sunday at Silverstone Circuit.
Both drivers were on a one-stop strategy for the 51-lap race around the 5.891-kilometer (3.660-mile), 18-turn track, but the timing of their stops differed drastically.
Grosjean started 10th and made his pit stop on lap 23, swapping the Pirelli P Zero Red supersoft tires he started the race with for a new set of Yellow softs. This dropped Grosjean to 15th.
Magnussen was the last driver to pit, running 37 laps on his Yellow softs before coming in for a relatively new set of Red supersofts that had only three laps on them. Staying out for so long allowed Magnussen to climb to as high as seventh, but with the tight midfield cars turning laps behind him on fresher tires, there wasn't enough of a gap for Magnussen to keep the spots he had earned. Magnussen returned to the race in 14th, but quickly passed the Williams of Lance Stroll to take 13th on lap 40.
At this point, Grosjean and Magnussen were running 12th and 13th. But on lap 43, Grosjean was forced to make an unscheduled pit stop after contact from the Sauber of Marcus Ericsson in turn six damaged the right-rear tire of his Haas VF-17. With a new set of red supersofts, Grosjean came out of the pits in 13th and rejoined the race behind Magnussen, who had inherited 12th. The duo maintained their positions for the final six tours of the race, with only the top-seven drivers finishing on the lead lap.
Leading all the laps and handily winning the British Grand Prix was three-time Formula One champion Lewis Hamilton. The Mercedes driver scored his 57th career Formula One victory, his fourth of the season and his fourth in a row at Silverstone. It was also Hamilton's fifth Formula One triumph in the British Grand Prix, tying him with Jim Clark and Alain Prost for the most British Grand Prix wins. Hamilton's margin of victory was a stout 14.063 seconds over his Mercedes teammate Valtteri Bottas. The victory significantly boosted Hamilton's championship effort as he cut 13 points off the lead held by Scuderia Ferrari driver Sebastian Vettel. Only a single point now separates the two.
Ten rounds into the 20-race FIA Formula One World Championship, Haas F1 Team remains seventh in the constructors standings with 29 points, but only three points ahead of eighth-place Renault, which earned eight points in the British Grand Prix via Nico Hulkenberg's sixth-place result. The gap to sixth-place Toro Rosso held steady at four points, however, as neither Daniil Kvyat nor Carlos Sainz Jr. finished among the top-10 and in the points. Grosjean and Magnussen stayed 13th and 14th, respectively, in the championship driver standings. Grosjean has 18 points and Magnussen has 11 points.
Romain Grosjean: "Tough day in the office. We didn't have much pace today with either tire. I got stuck in traffic initially, which killed the supersoft. I pitted for the softs, and again, traffic all the way. We tried a gamble at the end putting new supersofts on, hoping that something would happen at the front, but nothing did. We just need to understand why our race pace wasn't as good as it was in qualifying and go from there."
Kevin Magnussen: "I felt the Toro Rosso hit my tire at the start, but nothing happened. Fortunately, there was no puncture. I just didn't quite get the first lap. It was always going to be difficult when you start on the reverse strategy on the harder tire. That first stint kind of kept me out of the points. The pace was good in the car, I just had to do a long stint on the tires and wait for the guys in front to pit and then put in a lot of good lap times. I came back a bit at the end, but it wasn't enough. Whenever you're fighting outside of the points, it's never that interesting. Still, I'll take the positives. We were quick and had good pace in the race."
Guenther Steiner: "It's been an average weekend. We didn't get in the points, but Kevin's race pace was good. We lost a few positions at the start and that's where we ended up. Again, we had a similar race pace to all our competitors - we were just in a worse spot. I'm still confident in our car. In the midfield, we can battle. This time we were just at the lower end of our group. It changes around every weekend. It's not what we wanted, but still, we finished with both cars. On we go to Hungary."
Check out our Sunday gallery from Silverstone, here.