Haas’ Guenther Steiner: “After Australia we really needed this, and we bounced back”

Guenther Steiner says Friday at the Autodromo Internazionale Enzo e Dino Ferrari was just the pick-me-up that the Haas F1 Team needed on the back of their underwhelming Australian Grand Prix, with Kevin Magnussen securing the team’s best ever Qualifying result.

Magnussen survived an off-track moment during the early minutes of Q3 that saw him spin off track at turn twelve to cause a red flag, but he was able to keep the car going and return to the pits before Qualifying an excellent fourth, behind only Max Verstappen, Charles Leclerc and Lando Norris.

Team-mate Mick Schumacher was unable to make it into Q3, the German still waiting for his first top ten appearance of his Formula 1 career after a mistake on what turned out to be his one and only attempt in Q2 left him only twelfth.

Steiner, the Team Principal at Haas, admitted the changeable weather conditions at Imola made for a difficult Qualifying session for everyone, but from fourth and twelfth on the grid, the team can be happy with their days work, and it gives them optimism of a decent weekend to come.

“A very good day today,” said Steiner. “They were very challenging weather conditions and I know that is the same for everyone but after Australia we really needed this, and we bounced back.

“In Australia, we didn’t have a fantastic weekend but this weekend we all started right on Friday morning, confidence levels were high. Finishing with Kevin in P4 is fantastic – it’s another best for Haas F1 Team.

“For Mick, he was almost there, just a little bit missing but P12 is not a bad position to be starting the race so starting fourth and twelfth, let’s see what we can do tomorrow.”