Haas scored points with both cars in the sprint race in Austin and might have done the same in the grand prix had it not been for a slip-up on Kevin Magnussen’s radio.
Magnussen was running ninth when the team called him in for a second pit stop. He eventually took the chequered flag in 11th place, every car ahead of him having one-stopped.Afterwards Magnussen was reticent when asked what had gone wrong. “Not sure you can call it unlucky, but that’s the way it is,” he told the official Formula 1 channel. “Didn’t get any points today, I think we had a good chance to do that but didn’t manage to.”
“It’s hard,” he added, “you come out of the car, you go straight to talk to you guys, it’s better I go talk to the team first.”
Magnussen was called in for his second pit stop by racing engineer Mark Slade on lap 38, at short notice:
| Slade | So, Kev, the situation is we are concerned about the drop-off on your tyres at the end and that’s why we were making the suggestion we did. We think it will be the same or a better outcome. We’re going to have to swap with Nico when he gets in your DRS. He’s not quite there yet. |
| Slade | Lawson 12 seconds behind on fresh tyres. |
| Magnussen | What’s his lap time? |
| Slade | He’s only just come out of the pits. |
| Slade | Sector two was three tenths quicker than yours. Correction, five tenths quicker than yours. |
| Slade | Box, Kev box, you must box now. Box. Box. |
| Magnussen | Box, box. |
| Slade | Mode… |
| Magnussen | What happened? |
| Slade | It’s okay. We’re in good shape. Mode RS, mode RS for the start. You’re in good shape, Kev. |
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Haas team principal Ayao Komatsu admitted the team had slipped up when Magnussen was summoned in for a second stop, suggesting they should have left him out. Magnussen’s exchanges with his race engineer later on in the race bear that out:
| Magnussen | Can you just explain what you mean by ‘good shape’? |
| Slade | Sorry Kev, that was earlier. |
As does their post-race chat, in which they were keen not to give too much away about what had gone wrong:
| Slade | Okay, Kev. Leclerc… |
| Magnussen | Interrupting No, no, no. It’s okay. It’s okay. |
| Slade | Yeah. I was going to give you the run-down. |
| Slade | I’m sure you’re confused about what happened at the end. We will obviously go through it with you at the end when you get back. |
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While Nico Hulkenberg made a single pit stop and finished eighth, Magnussen lost the final point to Franco Colapinto. Komatsu admitted he might have had a better chance of taking a point had he not made his final pit stop.
“It was a bit of a mixed result, but it was good to get P8 with Nico,” he said. “He executed a very good one-stop strategy, and considering the situation he managed the tyres very well and communicated well.
“On Kevin’s side, it was almost the opposite as our baseline was a two-stop strategy and then there was some messy communication towards the end of the race. I feel that we should’ve scored points with both cars today, although Kevin may have struggled to hang on to P10, at least he would’ve had a chance.”
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Jere (@jerejj)
21st October 2024, 17:07
I was also baffled by that sudden hurry-up radio comm without an apparent reason such as a puncture, even a slow one.
MacLeod (@macleod)
22nd October 2024, 8:37
I was also thinking he had a slow punture or trash in his radiator or something. So they made a mistake very strange reaction indeed.
AlexS
21st October 2024, 20:18
Yeah it seemed out of nowhere.
bernasaurus (@bernasaurus)
21st October 2024, 21:35
I thought he had a critical error and was called in to retire. I’m guessing someone saw an undercut or gap appearing or disappearing behind and panicked. It was a weird one. Though a pity for Kev, I was happy Franco. There’s a very good chance these races my be his only chance in an F1 car, and he’s be doing great. Makes you wonder if they’d had him in the car from the start of the season.
Racerboy
21st October 2024, 21:57
HAAS has a long history of bone-head reace strategy calls. Then they allow the drivers to operate in the shadows of blame. I would enjoy seeing outcomes with Mags hooked up to a proper team. I love his aggressive and exviting approach…sadly it probably will never happen…a waste of a great talent.
Wayne Allison
22nd October 2024, 6:22
To be fair, It has already happened. He has had chances in 2 other teams.
Richard
22nd October 2024, 17:54
To be even more fair he lost his McLaren seat in much the same way Sainz is losing his Ferrari seat. The team saw a chance to get a former champion in Alonso so they dumped their younger driver to do so. He didn’t do as well as Button in ’14 but he scored points in the majority of races, the same amount of points as Kimi did in a better Ferrari car. I’m no big K.Mag fan but he didn’t really do anything wrong to lose that McLaren ride. Going to Haas from Renault was not leaving a better team as Haas had outscored Renault 29-8 when K. Mag was at Renault.
Captain_Slow
22nd October 2024, 11:02
Mark Slade is an experienced race engineer and Magnussen was – again – clearly not in agreement with his race strategy.
Who is making these disastrous pit-calls for Haas?
Whenever Magnussen is in front of Hulk, the team screw up his pit stop timing or add an extra – what is going on?
Haas has always been weak as this, but Komatsu is taking it to a new level (for one of the cars…)