15/11/2020
NEWS STORY
Haas F1 Team driver Kevin Magnussen finished 17th while Romain Grosjean was unable to reach the conclusion of Formula 1's Turkish Grand Prix, held Sunday at Intercity Istanbul Park.
Magnussen started from 13th on Pirelli's Cinturato Blue wet tires as the field struggled for traction on a wet and slippery surface. Magnussen made a customary strong getaway to capture a top 10 spot and preserved his position after exchanging wets for Green intermediate rubber on lap eight. Magnussen remained in touch in the points-paying spots but upon coming into the pit lane for a second time on lap 34 a cross-threaded wheel nut on the left-rear tire delayed his progress. Magnussen had to stop at the end of the pit lane, wait for his mechanics to address the situation, prior to re-joining the action. The significant time loss relegated Magnussen to the rear and he classified 17th.
Grosjean took the start 17th on wet tires and picked up one position on a frantic opening lap. Grosjean switched to intermediate tires on lap eight and continued to circulate in the treacherous conditions before opting for another set of intermediates on lap 37. Grosjean was tapped into a spin by Williams' Nicholas Latifi and on lap 52 came into the pits to retire the car, which was two laps down, having sustained substantial damage to the left-hand side of the VF-20's floor.
Haas F1 Team maintains ninth in the Constructors' Championship with three points.
Romain Grosjean: "It was a tricky race as suspected - it was very slippery. We struggled all weekend to generate tire temperature. I didn't feel very comfortable in the car, or at least I couldn't really push the way I wanted. There were times in the race it was getting better, other times it wasn't. Then Nicholas (Latifi) crashed into me which heavily damaged my floor. We retired the car shortly after that. We were struggling in these conditions from the beginning, it was always going to be a hard race. If there were mixed conditions maybe we could have done something, but in a pure wet race it was harder."
Kevin Magnussen: "The race had been going really well. The tires really wore down to the carcass, and when they got to that stage we were really strong. I think we cost ourselves some points today. I guess a tire didn't come on I guess at the pit stop. I had to stop the car and get pulled back. I lost two laps and that was it really. We had really good speed in the car, so once again it's very sad that we've missed a points opportunity."
Guenther Steiner: "The race was going in the right direction, at least for Kevin (Magnussen). We were solid there in the top 10, looking quite stable, and then we had a bad pit stop again. That took us out of the points. From there on we just couldn't do a lot. It was a very interesting and exciting race, but we weren't part of it to get points. There's nobody else to blame but ourselves. We need to fix this going forward."
Check out our Sunday gallery from Istanbul, here.