While Magnussen has three top-10 finishes and points from finishing in the top eight in the Sprint, teammate Schumacher has yet to make an impression this season.
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Following a difficult Australian Grand Prix, Haas returned to form at Imola, with Kevin Magnussen taking P9 for his third points score in four races – though teammate Mick Schumacher had a tougher afternoon, spinning twice en route to P17. Magnussen, who finished fifth after a brilliant start, narrowly avoided colliding with Carlos Sainz and Daniel Ricciardo, with the Dane – who finished fourth in Friday qualifying and eighth in the Sprint – looking set for another big haul of points. However, the team chose to pit him one lap later than the majority of his competitors for slick tyres, a decision that proved costly as he finished ninth.
“I got up to P5 and the pace was pretty good on the intermediates,” he said. “Then the track dried up and we were a bit late to come in for slicks so we got undercut by a couple of people. Had a slow pit stop as well so didn’t really nail that part of the race but still came out and fought for points and scored two points, three over the weekend, so pretty decent.”
While Magnussen has three top-10 finishes and points from finishing in the top eight in the Sprint, teammate Schumacher has yet to make an impression this season after finishing 17th. The German had made progress in Saturday’s Sprint, starting P10 for the first time in his career, but couldn’t convert that after a poor start in which he lost control in the greasy conditions and collided with Fernando Alonso’s sidepod. He was then caught in a DRS train and unable to move forward, which was exacerbated by a second spin following a trip over the grass.
“The Williams were quite quick on the straight so no chance for me there to get by,” Schumacher said afterwards. “It was quite unfortunate but we live and learn, we look ahead and try to do better next time.”
While the return to points-scoring form was welcome after a difficult time in Melbourne, team boss Guenther Steiner was not entirely satisfied with his team’s performance, which currently places them eighth out of ten in the constructors’ standings.
“We need to keep on working and get ourselves in the position to be the at the other end of the midfield, not at the back,” he said, having watched the likes of McLaren and Alfa Romeo slip past them in the pecking order. “On the dry tyres – we were just not fast enough for the others.”
