Kevin Magnussen, Haas, Monaco, 2018

Haas losing downforce due to parts shortage – Magnussen

2018 Monaco Grand Prix

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Kevin Magnussen revealed his car is running lower on downforce in Monaco than it was at the season-opening race in Australia.

The Haas driver said the late arrival of upgrades plus “fatigue” on other parts meant the team had to remove some pieces from its VF-18.

“Our upgrades have been delayed, so we’re still with the same car as we had at the first race,” said Magnussen.

“Not only that we’ve also damaged parts on the car, things are breaking. Nothing big, we’ve fixed the issues that are kind of safety-related. But still little winglets on the bargeboard, on the floor, they keep breaking off.”

The team hasn’t been able to repair all the parts it needs, Magnussen said.

“When you repair you basically just cut them up now and that means we’ve got less downforce than the first race. Everyone else is putting on downforce, that means you’re going to lose out.

Magnussen admitted the team didn’t expect their “disastrous” qualifying performance in Monaco, two weeks after their strong result in Spain.

“We’re kind of surprised to see it’s this bad. Barcelona is a very smooth track, it’s not very bumpy and you don’t take a lot of kerbs there so the car didn’t break. I think it also suited our car very well, medium and high-speed corners.

“We saw in Barcelona that our absolute biggest weakness was turn 10. So it’s kind of these corners where you have a lot of yaw in the car, the car is struggling lot.”

“If you look at the actual deficit it’s not that big,” he added, “it’s just tough that the whole field is so tight. It’s great for Formula One and everything but it means you don’t need to be that far off to be at the back.”

Magnussen is optimistic the team will be competitive again once its cars are fully repaired and upgraded.

“It’s a little bit disappointing that we haven’t got enough parts to maintain a new and proper condition car but that is a point that we need to improve.

“Even so I’m still very proud of the team, the fact they’ve been able to design such a competitive car with such limited budget and limited resources. To have a car, when it’s in one piece, that is actually that competitive, as we’ve proven on many different tracks now it works well.

“It’s just we need to put those new parts on the car.”

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Gabriele Koslowski
Gabriele Koslowski first began following Formula 1 during the early noughties, and is a director of a Belgian motorsport media company. During the past...
Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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7 comments on “Haas losing downforce due to parts shortage – Magnussen”

  1. Test drive the new Ferrari components and then move on.. Monaco is not their favorit.. low speed speed turns with bumps in a fragile car…just avoid penaltys and crash..

  2. Any idea why the parts are delayed? Money problems? Just the lead time to manufacture? Redesign to prevent bits falling off?

    1. Remember their business model @phylyp. They don’t make many/any parts, Dallara in Italy do and Haas are in the USA. It’s not what you would call a seamless operation. Sure it’s cheaper but it drives a bus through the spirit of the rules for F1 “Constructors” and as a result, they will always be on the back foot as the season progresses. Oh, and they’re probably tight for money too. Don’t get me wrong, I like the team, I just wish they would get properly on board.

      1. @baron – I believe Haas have a second base in the UK as well to help in turning cars around quicker. So its not the logistics of moving bits from Italy to the US, but only Italy to the UK, so the logistics shouldn’t be as terrible (but definitely not as easy as in-house, I agree).

        I wish we had Guenther Steiner’s comments on this matter, that would be more insightful than just one of their driver’s views.

        1. Didn’t they buy the old marrussia / manor F1 base?
          @phylyp @baron

  3. Sergey Martyn
    27th May 2018, 9:41

    They didn’t mentioned the reason of the shortage – Grosjean.
    BTW the same problem may strike Red Bull soon – if they keep rebuilding the car # 33 each race weekend. :-)

  4. Felt sorry for Kmag – looked like an idiot all weekend- no downforce and no grib in lowspeed turns..

    But you will never hear him complaining…

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