Kevin Magnussen "bummer" after being "on eggs" in Australia

Magnussen, Haas, Australia, 2022 — Photo: © LAT Images

Australian Grand Prix

Magnussen "bummer" after being "on eggs" in Australia

The Haas driver failed to score on the alternate strategy

Ewan Gale

Sunday 10 April 2022 12:45

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Kevin Magnussen was left to rue the safety car which "completely ruined" his strategy at the Australian Grand Prix.

The Haas driver started on the hard tyres to try and make up for a difficult qualifying session and had looked racy in the early exchanges.

But hopes of scoring points evaporated when Sebastian Vettel crashed, triggering an early safety car which closed the pack up and consigned Magnussen to the back of the pack once he had made his pit stop.

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The Dane also had some hairy on-track moments, including when taking to the grass at the turn nine-10 chicane after almost running into the back of Alfa Romeo's Zhou Guaunyu.

Addressing his race, he said: "It was kind of on-eggs a little bit out there.

"Good fun, a nice track, bummed not to get points today but we made a small gamble I would say with the hard tyre because we felt like we were faster than our position, which we were.

"Again, the safety car came and completely ruined the strategy and we know that is the gamble but it has happened two times now so it is a bummer."

Australian GP and "outlier" for Haas

Haas scored in both of the opening two races courtesy of Magnussen but seemed to struggle throughout the weekend at Albert Park.

On whether the Melbourne event was a one-off hardship for the team, Magnussen replied: "Yeah, this was an outlier.

"The starting set-up that we had here wasn't good and we were also struggling a bit with tyres because of this new tarmac, but we turned it around and we were able to get much closer to the pack in the race.

"We actually had quite decent pace, out-raced the Alpine of [Fernando] Alonso and he almost qualified on the front row yesterday so looking at that, it is a positive.

"We were able to turn things around and we will score points next time."