08/10/2022
NEWS STORY
Haas F1 Team drivers Mick Schumacher and Kevin Magnussen qualified 15th and 18th respectively for the Japanese Grand Prix, Round 18 of the 2022 FIA Formula 1 World Championship.
After the downpour that dominated Friday's track time, Schumacher and Magnussen had their first taste of the Suzuka Circuit in dry conditions in final practice head of qualifying - sampling the Pirelli P Zero Yellow medium and Red soft tires in the 60-minute session.
Two hours later and qualifying kicked off with the opening knockout round - Q1. Schumacher bounced back from having to sit out yesterday's second session due to a chassis change by setting a hot lap of 1:31.152 on his second set of soft rubber to place 13th at the checkered - the German advancing into Q2 comfortably. Magnussen also ran two sets of softs, the Dane missing out on Q2 with a best lap of 1:31.352 to finish 18th on the timesheet.
Schumacher again ran two sets of the soft compound in Q2. His first charging lap of 1:31.439 proved to be his fastest to qualify 15th on the grid for Sunday's 53-lap race.
Kevin Magnussen: "It was a pretty smooth qualifying, but I didn't have any more in it. Mick and I have different set-ups but it was two tenths that I was behind. My lap was good, there were no mistakes and the car actually felt fine so it's one of those where you're P18 but it's hard to understand why. There's some chances of mixed weather tomorrow and in this position you hope for that."
Mick Schumacher: "It seems like we pretty much got the maximum out of it. I think maybe one position more could've been in it, but we start the race on the clean side which might actually be better for tomorrow's race start. I hope for rain, our car in the rain is pretty good and our performance in it on Friday was great, so I'm very much looking forward to some mixed conditions."
Guenther Steiner, Team Principal: "It wasn't the result we hoped for today. Kevin went out in Q1 which was pretty disappointing, and Mick made it into Q2 but he couldn't better his time from Q1. We start where we start tomorrow but there could be mixed conditions and maybe we can make something out of it. We just need to make sure we are not making any mistakes."
Check out our Saturday gallery from Suzuka here.