Magnussen reflects on ‘worst race we’ve had in a while’ in Belgium as Hulkenberg urges Haas to ‘forget this weekend’

It was a tough day for Haas at the Belgian Grand Prix, with Kevin Magnussen and Nico Hulkenberg both finishing the event well outside of the points in what Magnussen described as “the worst race we’ve had in a while”.

After lining up in P17 on the grid, Magnussen tried a one-stop strategy and, while he at one stage found himself running in the points, the Dane ultimately slipped backwards to end the race in P15, which later became P14 following George Russell’s post-race disqualification.

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Reflecting on his afternoon at Spa-Francorchamps, Magnussen admitted that the team had simply lacked pace rather than making any errors.

“I think we had a decent race,” the 31-year-old said. “We just didn’t have the pace to fight further up today, so [we] just took what we could and did a one-stop which was fine. Can’t really say we did anything wrong, we just weren’t fast enough.”

In terms of whether preparing for a dry set-up after qualifying may have contributed to the issues, Magnussen responded: “I don’t think it was that, we just kind of did the best we could for the car in broad terms. We didn’t focus specifically on the race.

“Actually what we thought would be best for quali was probably also going to be best for the race, so we didn’t really have any compromise – we were just not fast enough.

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“This track, we thought it was going to be good for us, but we’ve been surprised many times and this is the worst race we’ve had in a while so, yeah, looking forward to the summer break. I think everyone is, and then coming back to more races where we’ll score some more points.”

The event did not fare much better for Hulkenberg, who – like Magnussen – had exited Saturday’s qualifying in Q1 and started from down in P16 on the grid. Making an early pit stop failed to pay off for the German and he ultimately crossed the line in last place.

“[It was] very difficult,” Hulkenberg said of his day at Spa. “Just no pace, no harmony, no rhythm. I don’t know, I just didn’t get off on the right foot with the car this weekend and we didn’t manage to find a sweet spot with all the different sessions.

“We need to look into a little bit why, but to some extent I think just forget this weekend, regroup, refresh over the summer break and go again.”

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Pushed on whether it was a surprise to not have more pace, the 36-year-old responded: “Yeah, I think especially on my side. Kevin looked a bit better and obviously he pulled off a one-stop which was not bad and decent. But still overall we need to look into our low-downforce performance.”