’We just didn't have good pace' says Magnussen after point-less outing for Haas in Mexico

Haas endured a tough point-less outing at the Mexico City Grand Prix as Mick Schumacher and Kevin Magnussen took the chequered flag in 16th and 17th, respectively – with the former blaming the cooler conditions for their lack of pace of race day.

Schumacher started in 15th but lost a place to the Aston Martin of Lance Stroll at the start before then being overtaken by Alex Albon on Lap 9, leaving the German running in 17th for much of the afternoon.

He then made the switch from the softs to the medium tyre, looking to make his way through the field. However, he once again struggled for pace compared to the cars ahead of him and speaking after the race, Schumacher cited the change in conditions as the reason behind their lack of pace.

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“We saw in FP3 that once the track gets colder, it seems like other people perform a bit better than us,” said Schumacher. “So, it was unfortunate but on the other hand we know the pace was there yesterday.

“Unfortunately, it wasn’t there today; nothing wrong with the strategy or nothing in that sense. So, that was our pace... but I’m sure that in Brazil things might look very different again.”

When asked if there were any positives from the race weekend, Schumacher – who had a strong Q1 lap deleted for track limits – said: “Qualifying pace, definitely. That one lap definitely was great. Put us into the top-10 easily and therefore we have to take that on board and learn from it. Hopefully we can understand it the way we need to so that we can perform better or use it to perform better.”

Team mate Magnussen crossed the line to finish 17th after opting for the medium-soft strategy in the race. And while the Dane agreed with Schumacher that they lacked pace on Sunday, he does not believe the cooler conditions were the cause of the issue.

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“No,” said Magnussen when asked whether the cooler temperature affected their performance. “We just didn’t have a good pace today so we did what we could. Yeah, did a medium-soft race which I guess could’ve given us some opportunities, but we were a bit too far off today to really do too much.”

Haas now head to Brazil for the Sao Paulo Grand Prix eighth in the constructors’ standings, one point ahead of AlphaTauri.