Pre Race
GAME ON IN CHINA 
We’re well underway in Shanghai where the fifth Grand Prix of the season takes place this weekend. The race marks a 20th anniversary since the first race was held on the Chinese circuit – and it’s also a comeback on the Formula 1 calendar after four years of absence due to corona restrictions.
Kevin Magnussen has already made himself well noticed on the Shanghai Circuit as the Admin By Request powered Dane finished 10th in Saturday’s Sprint Race – the first of six Sprint Races this season. However, a challenging qualifying for Sunday’s Main Race means that K-Mag will start from a P17 on the grid. But Magnussen still remains positive ahead of the race…
“I’ve scored points around the Shanghai International Circuit on a few occasions and this year it will be interesting as it’s been missing from the calendar for a while, plus it’s the first Sprint of the season – so it’s already a challenge for everyone, but that just makes it even more exciting, said Kevin.
“The track sems to suit our car well. It’s got some low-speed corners which hopefully will be good for us and there’s also some good overtaking opportunities. I’m in a good spot with the car at the moment, so hopefully we can have a good race there.”
DID YOU KNOW THAT … Designed by legendary Hermann Tilke, the 5.5km long Shanghai International Circuit was completed in 2004 and is designed to look like the Chinese symbol for ‘shang’, meaning ‘upwards’. There’s a unique start to the lap as the drivers fly into the ever-tightening Turn 1 that wraps in on itself for 270 degrees before unfurling, while a similar complex – which features banking – catapults drivers onto the lengthy (and very fast) back straight.
Race Day
“It just really wasn’t our weekend”
It was a disappointing P16 finish for Kevin Magnussen at Shanghai International Circuit where the MoneyGram Haas F1 Team driver started the race from a P17 after an unlucky qualifying. During the race, Magnussen moved forwards towards the cusp of the top 10 but was involved in an accident with Racing Bull’s Yuki Tsunoda, necessitating an extra pit stop. The Dane was then issued a 10-second time penalty for the collision.
“It just really wasn’t our weekend. We started 17th after a bad qualifying yesterday, and sometimes you can make it back, but this time we couldn’t. We had attempted a one-stop strategy, we had to bail out because the degradation was too high on the hard. As soon as I came out on the new hard rubber, I had the puncture because of the incident with Yuki – so had to pit again for the medium. I effectively had to do a one-stop anyway, even though we didn’t want to,” said Kevin Magnussen.
“On the positive side, things were working well with the car though, we seem to have decent pace in it, that was also the case in Sprint qualifying and the Sprint race earlier in the weekend.”
You’ll come back stronger, Kevin! Next race – that will be the sixth round of the 2024 Formula 1 World Championship – takes place in the streets of Miami on May 5.
