11/06/2022
NEWS STORY
Haas F1 Team drivers Kevin Magnussen and Mick Schumacher qualified 16th and 20th respectively for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, Round 8 of the 2022 FIA Formula 1 World Championship.
Both Magnussen and Schumacher were knocked out of qualifying at the end of the opening Q1 stage. Their respective fastest laps - a 1:44.643 for Magnussen and a 1:45.775 for Schumacher - were set on their first stint on new sets of Pirelli P Zero Red soft tires. While attempting their second round of flying laps on fresh rubber both were slowed by an off from Aston Martin's Lance Stroll at Turn 7 - the Canadian crashing again shortly thereafter causing a red flag stop with just two minutes and 30 seconds of the session remaining. Neither Magnussen or Schumacher could better their earlier times as Q1 ended - both pitting on their final run having failed to get the necessary sector times banked after being forced to queue to exit the pits with the clock ticking away.
Kevin Magnussen: "When the red flag comes out and there's just enough time to go out for another lap, the people at the back of the queue always struggle to get through before the time runs out. Being the first in the pitlane you're always stuck as soon as there are two or three cars queuing up, you can't get out, so we missed out on that last lap. We're P16, but it's a long day tomorrow."
Mick Schumacher: "We knew it was going to be tight, so it's frustrating not to get the lap in as I think there would've been more potential in it. We were behind Lance when he had his mistake which cost my lap, meaning we only had one lap - which was the first run - and track improvement is quite big around here. It felt like the race had already started but it's Baku and there are a lot of opportunities. It will be a tough but hopefully enjoyable race tomorrow."
Guenther Steiner, Team Principal: "In FP3, I think we got some of the performance back that we lost yesterday, and we were actually looking forward to qualifying. We didn't make it out of Q1 for various reasons - between yellow flags and chaos at our last attempt when we were not allowed to get in the queue - we had to wait until the last car and it's just not possible to do anymore. Unfortunately, that happened, and we keep saying we're unlucky and at some stage it will change, but we know we can do better than this. Let's see, hopefully tomorrow we can get lucky."
Check out our Saturday gallery from Baku, here.