19/11/2023
NEWS STORY
MoneyGram Haas F1 Team finished the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Round 22 of the 2023 FIA Formula 1 World Championship, with Kevin Magnussen 13th, while Nico Hulkenberg was forced to retire on Saturday night at the Las Vegas Strip Circuit.
Magnussen started from eighth place on Pirelli P Zero Yellow medium tires and briefly moved up to sixth through the opening stages, before cycling through to the lower stages of the top 10. Magnussen came into the pit lane on lap 14 for White hard tires before stopping once more, for the same tire compound, on lap 26 when the safety car was deployed for debris. Magnussen completed the 50-lap grand prix in 13th position.
Hulkenberg took the start from 13th on the grid, also on medium tires, and gained positions through the opening stint prior to pitting on lap 12 for hard tires. Like Magnussen, Hulkenberg took the opportunity to come into the pits behind the safety car on lap 26, sticking with another set of hard tires, but had to pull to the side of the track a handful of laps from the checkered flag with a power unit issue on the VF-23.
Kevin Magnussen: "I feel like we had the degradation and pace to score points, but we didn't so I need to review it and see how we could've done better. It feels like we had good degradation for once and pace in the race, even at the end of the stints. There was lots of track evolution throughout the race, which was fine and part of the challenge. I've enjoyed it."
Nico Hulkenberg: "Something happened and I lost power, so we'll look into it. I thought race pace wasn't too bad actually, I had a good start but with the accident in Turn 1 I had to go wide around the outside and lost a lot of places, so then was behind already. After that, I felt pretty comfortable in the car, and I felt we had more pace but there was always traffic and for graining protection you couldn't push as much as you wanted, so that was limiting. All in all, I would say it was one of the better races though."
Guenther Steiner, Team Principal: "Both drivers fought hard today to get the best out of the car, and I think they did, and we stayed in front of our normal opponents. We couldn't get close to the big guys and both cars got stuck behind a Williams - they're very fast down the straights - so we couldn't get through. For Nico, unfortunately something happened with the engine and Kevin came home P13. I don't think we did anything wrong."
Check out our Race Day gallery from Las Vegas here.