In the first qualification of the season, Nico Hulkenberg reached the final, where he posted the tenth fastest time. The Haas driver is happy that the new car, like last year’s, is fast in one lap, but the real test will be Saturday’s race.
Kevin Magnussen showed a fifteenth fastest time and explained this result because he was unable to drive a good lap in the decisive attempt.
Nico Hulkenberg (10th): “At the end of last year I reached the final several times – last season the speed of the car in qualifying was our strong point. It looks like we kept that quality, but we had to solve the race pace issues.
This is our main task for the season, so during the off-season and during testing we focused our efforts on this topic. Apparently the car has improved over the course, but the real test will be tomorrow’s race – we’ll see if we’ve really improved. Exciting times ahead.”
Kevin Magnussen (15th): “I’m not happy because I didn’t manage to get a good lap in qualifying. The positive result is that the team has made some progress with the car, so I’m looking forward to the race.
I know we have a good race pace so we can be more competitive. I hope this will be the case. This will be a difference from last year’s situation, when we just went backwards in the races.
To be honest, I’m disappointed today, but I’m looking forward to Saturday.”
Source: F1 News
I am Christopher Clyde, an experienced journalist and content writer with a passion for sports. I have been writing about Formula 1 news for the past five years and am currently employed as an author at athletistic.com, one of the top sports websites in the US.
