Haas must understand the reasons why its VF-19 was “hopeless” during Formula 1’s Bahrain Grand Prix, according to Kevin Magnussen, after he regressed through the midfield order.
Magnussen qualified sixth, just 0.005s behind Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, but lost positions during the first stint of the race and gradually slipped backwards.
Magnussen classified 13th, ahead of only Racing Point’s Lance Stroll and the Williams pair of George Russell and Robert Kubica.
It came two weeks after the Dane comfortably led the midfield group in race trim in Australia.
“Absolutely we were just hopeless from the beginning all the way to the end,” said Magnussen.
“We were very slow on the straights as well so we had no chance to defend.
“It was a pretty hopeless race. We were so good in qualifying so the car has to be good. Something wasn’t right and we need to work hard to try and understand what went wrong as we clearly have a good car when it’s working.
“It’s pretty worrying to have a day like this.”
When prompted to explain the “something wasn’t right” comment by Motorsport Week, Magnussen replied: “I just had no grip. The car just wasn’t working.
“It wasn’t switched on. Sliding everywhere. Locking up everywhere. It was a totally different car to what we had in qualifying. Very strange.
“We were slow right from the beginning. Not like [tyre] degradation. We were slow from the first lap.”
Magnussen added that Haas’ straight-line speed was also a cause for concern.
“We didn’t have any pace or lap time and on top of that we were slowest on the straights,” he said.
“We need to try and understand. Other Ferrari engines were flying past me on the straight so it’s not that.
“We knew we had a high downforce package here so it’s not such a big surprise but we thought we’d be fast pace wise.
“We were so slow and with the straight-line speed we had it was just impossible.”
