Haas F1 Team finished outside the points after Sunday’s seventy-one lap race around the Autódromo Hermans Rodriguez, in Mexico City, as Mick Schumacher came across the line in sixteenth place, with his team-mate Kevin Magnussen finishing just behind the German driver in seventeenth.
Schumacher started the race in fifteenth after moving up a place due to Magnussen being given a five-place grid penalty for an engine change. The German driver began on the Soft compound tyres where on the opening lap, he managed to lose two places.
Schumacher was soon able to settle into a rhythm on the high altitude circuit. He pitted on lap twenty-five for Medium tyres which carried him through to the end of the race where he finished in sixteenth.
“We saw in FP3 that once the track gets colder, it seemed that others were performing a bit better than us.” explained the German.
“We knew the pace was there yesterday but it wasn’t there today, there wasn’t anything wrong with the strategy or anything in that sense. That was our pace and we have to live with it today. I’m sure that in Brazil, things might look very different again.”
Kevin Magnussen: “We just didn’t have good pace today”
Magnussen came into Mexico’s capital city coming off an impressive points finish, as he took ninth place in Austin, Texas at the Circuit of The Americas, with the hope of being able to score more points this time round.
The Danish driver qualified for Sunday’s race in fifteenth after making it into Qualifying Two just ahead of his team-mate. However, on race day, Magnussen was dropped to nineteenth on the grid after having to take an engine change.
Magnussen began the race on the Medium compound tyre and pitted only once on lap thirty-nine for Soft tyres, which took him to the end of the race where he finished in seventeenth place.
“We just didn’t have good pace today.” Magnussen admitted.
“I had the medium and then soft tire on for the race, which could’ve given us some opportunities, but we were a bit too far off to really do much. There are so many opportunities, we scored points in the last race but today isn’t what we wanted, so we’ll move on to the next one.”
Kevin Magnussen at the Mexico City Grand Prix. Credit: Haas F1 Team Media.