In their 50th race as a team in Formula 1, Haas F1 secured their best points finish as Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen crossed the line in fourth and fifth-place respectively at the Austrian Grand Prix.
Their weekend was already on a high after recording their best qualifying result on fifth and eighth, Grosjean was promoted to fourth after Sebastian Vettel was demoted to sixth after receiving a penalty in qualifying.
The Frenchman was ecstatic at the result which saw him collect his first points of 2018, it was also his best finish since taking to the podium for Lotus in the 2015 Belgian Grand Prix.
"It’s a great day for all of us, the whole team," said Grosjean
"They deserve such a good result with the cars finishing fourth and fifth. It’s incredible for our 50th Grand Prix.
"I’m so, so happy for all the guys. We’ve done an amazing job all weekend. We had some luck in the race with the Mercedes cars not finishing, but it’s been a great weekend and we can really build on that.
"There are still a few things we can improve here and there, but I’m happy we managed to get that long stint on the tires. The last 20 laps were not – there were blisters on the rears and I was afraid they were going to explode at any time. I am just so happy that we hung in there and finished fourth and fifth."
Kevin Magnussen made his intentions clear at the beginning of the race to pass Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel in Turn 1 on the opening lap with a robust manoeuvre.
In the latter stages of the race, the Dane came under increasing pressure from both Force Indias as tyre wear was an ever-increasing concern due to the amount of blistering seen on the soft compound tyre.
“We’ve had a very good weekend," added the Dane. "To challenge for top-five, we didn’t expect that. We finished both cars in the top-five, and that’s an incredible job from the team and I’m really proud of the whole team.
"We were struggling with blistering on the tires – the whole of the soft stint. They blistered very badly. I managed that, and then had pressure from behind, so I had to push, but I had a good race.
"We’ve shown this weekend that we’ve got a good car. Actually, it’s not only this weekend – we’ve shown all year that the car is very competitive. We’ve just got to keep going like this."
The result has seen the Banbury-based outfit score more points in 2018 than they managed to achieve in either of their two previous seasons in F1 after just nine races.
Scoring 22 points in Austria means Haas has jumped McLaren and Force India to move into fifth place in the Constructors' Championship with 49 points.
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