Haas learned 'interesting' lessons in Bahrain test
ByAutoSport
Published 11/04/2019 at 09:02 GMT+1
Kevin Magnussen says Haas learned some "interesting" lessons from Formula 1's Bahrain test, which he thinks was "lucky" to have immediately after its miserable grand prix there.
Eurosport
Image credit: TNT Sports
Magnussen lamented a "hopeless" race in Bahrain in which he finished out of the points, having qualified sixth and within touching distance of Max Verstappen's Red Bull.
The two-day test at the Sakhir circuit in the week after the race afforded Haas an immediate opportunity to establish what went wrong.
"To have a bad weekend when we have a test straight after is kind of lucky I guess," said Magnussen, when asked by Autosport if Haas had understood its problems.
"We were able to kind of replicate it and directly learn the problems we had on the same track and a couple of days after.
"I think we found some interesting things that could be reasons.
"I don't think it's just one thing, I think it's a combination of things that kind of went wrong and that wasn't in the window, which often it is when you have such a bad weekend, unless you've broken something on the car.
"It was good to have that test and it seems the team found some interesting stuff.
"Hopefully we can be better if we find a similar situation again."
Magnussen was a sitting duck on the straights in Bahrain, where a higher-downforce package left the Haas drivers vulnerable.
The Dane explained that Haas did not think it needed to have the wing it has for this weekend's Chinese Grand Prix.
"We simply didn't have that lower step, medium-downforce package," he said. "We didn't have it.
"We have it this weekend. But it wasn't ready. I didn't expect to be needing it as badly as we were.
"It was OK in qualifying because you have DRS and the difference becomes less than in the race when you're running without DRS and suddenly you need efficiency much more."
The addition of a third DRS zone would not have helped with this problem, although Magnussen conceded it was about more than just too much downforce.
"In the end our car was just way too dialled towards one-lap pace," he said.
"Both on downforce level, tyre management, the whole set-up on the car was probably wrong for a long stint.
"It was very difficult but as I said I think we found some interesting things in the test. "We know the car is good, it qualified sixth on Saturday.
"It was bad on Sunday but that can only be tyres and kind of the set-up."
Team-mate Romain Grosjean also said the team had found some "interesting" set-up parameters the team should have applied in the race.
"You shouldn't qualify twice in the top 10 if you don't have a fast car," he said.
"Right now what we need is a bit of luck on our side and make sure we go through the race with no incident or issue."
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