‘I was dreaming of a little more than one point,’ admits Magnussen after starting on row two in Miami

Kevin Magnussen admitted he was "dreaming of more" from his P4 start in Miami after he finished 10th, but said a points finish was still a step forward for Haas in the super tight midfield battle of 2023.

Magnussen fell from fourth to take the final point on Sunday in Miami and, while he admitted he was hoping for more, he said the result capped off a “solid weekend” for the team, after he enjoyed a running battle in the race with Ferrari's Charles Leclerc (see the clip below).

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“I was dreaming of a little more than one point but still what we came here to do is get points and finish in the top 10. I don’t think it was an easy race to get points in today because all the big teams finished up there, and P10, I think is more or less the best we could’ve hoped in terms of the pace we had,” he said.

“It’s been a good weekend, it’s been a very solid weekend, we’ve built it up very nicely over the practice sessions and into qualifying and then obviously got a very good qualifying yesterday but today as I said I think it was a difficult race to score points with everyone finishing and then we got one – so, that’s a pretty good step forward.”

As for Magnussen’s team mate Nico Hulkenberg, he started 12th but fell down to 15th overall – and the German lamented a tough day around the Hard Rock Stadium.

“It was a tricky, difficult race,” he said. “Didn’t quite pan out the way we hoped, we wanted, yeah, the start was all right but then I think we were just having difficulties in traffic; when we were surrounded with different cars we were struggling for consistency, for grip – makes it quite difficult, for me anyways today, and I was struggling with that.

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“And yeah obviously that then translates into higher tyre deg, so not a good one, but I still feel some valuable lessons probably learned, some good data, and hopefully we can tackle those issues in the future later in the season,” said Hulkenberg.

Magnussen’s point was Haas’s eighth of the season, putting them seventh in the table heading to Imola – where they and numerous other teams are planning to bring more upgrades to their cars.