Pierre Gasly revels in Kevin Magnussen pole despite "terrible" result for AlphaTauri

São Paulo Grand Prix

Gasly revels in Magnussen pole despite "terrible" result for AlphaTauri

Magnussen's pole gives Haas an advantage in its battle over AlphaTauri

Ewan Gale

Saturday 12 November 2022 14:00

Pierre Gasly declared Kevin Magnussen's pole position for the São Paulo Grand Prix sprint as "what I like about F1", despite the result being "terrible" for AlphaTauri.

Haas driver Magnussen was in stunning form during the wet-dry-wet qualifying at Interlagos and after making his way through to Q3, found himself in perfect track position for the top-10 shoot-out.

Setting his lap time first, the Dane outpaced Red Bull's Max Verstappen, who suffered from a lock-up, to take his maiden pole ahead of eight other drivers in total who completed a lap on soft tyres.

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An error from George Russell which left his Mercedes beached in the gravel triggered red flags, and during the intervening lull, rain fell that ensured lap times could not be improved, confirming Magnussen's pole.

Despite Haas just a point above AlphaTauri in the race for eighth position in the constructors' championship, Gasly was delighted for Magnussen.

After qualifying as the lead AT03 in 12th, Gasly said: "It could have been us, but this I like. This is what I like about F1. This is good. Unbelievable!

"But for us it is terrible. We are fighting Haas in the championship.

"When you see Kev and a Haas on pole position you think 'Wow! This could have been anyone'.

"But I must say congrats to him because in these conditions with the rain falling, you need to do the lap and he did it at the exact right moment.

"So congrats to him and Haas."

Gasly, who was the first driver to switch to slick tyres in Q1 as the track dried after a pre-qualifying shower, missed out on a top-10 place by less than a tenth of a second.

Despite that, the Frenchman added: "I am still really happy with what we did.

"Q1 was great, we took a risk with the slick tyres and it paid off.

"Q2, I did some good laps, we just missed out. We can still be pleased about the quali."