Pre Race

HUNGARY

Ready for two more Formula 1 races before the summer break? The double-header starts with the Hungarian Grand Prix, round 13 of the 2024 FIA Formula 1 World Championship, taking the MoneyGram Haas F1 Team to the Hungaroring. After announcing his departure from the American squad at the end of this season (we’re still waiting for news about the future!), Kevin Magnussen is, as always, looking forward to getting back in the car.

“Looking back at this season, we’ve been competitive at most of the locations we’ve been to, so hopefully we’re looking forward to another competitive weekend on this high-downforce circuit. The track is fun; it’s a small circuit, kind of like a go-kart track and always has a good atmosphere – there are often quite a few Danish fans at this one,” said Kevin Magnussen.

“I think we’re going into a double-header with two very different tracks, one very high-downforce – almost like our Monaco package – in Budapest, and one low-downforce track with Spa, so we’re really going to be putting the VF-24 to the test.”

DID YOU KNOW THAT … It took just nine months to build the Hungaroring? The 4.4 km long circuit located outside the capital of Budapest hosted its first Formula 1 race in 1986 – making Hungary the first country under the Iron Curtain to host a World Championship Grand Prix. The compact and curvy layout with short straights often sees it compared to a karting circuit, and with several series of corners to string together, teams go for Monaco levels of downforce.

Pre Race

LET’S GO

All set for tomorrow’s race at Hungaroring, where Kevin Magnussen will start from P15 after making it to Q2 in today’s qualifying. It was not an easy job as the weather had changed from the stifling blue-sky heat of the practice sessions to cloudy and rainy conditions.

“It’s good that we made it to Q2. I believe we had a car for Q3, we were just the last car out of the pit lane, and with all the gaps being created I ran out of time and had to effectively push like it was my quali lap, so by the time you’ve got there you’ve already done a hard-pushing lap. There’s easily a lot of lap time lost from that, and we were only two-tenths from Q3, so that’s what cost us, I think,” said Kevin Magnussen.

“Since FP2 we’ve been quick, so I’m positive about tomorrow’s race. I hope we’ll be able to make a good start – and then let’s see what we can do.”

Race Recap

“We take another lesson and hope Spa is better”

Finishing 15th in the Hungarian Grand Prix, the weekend did not end in a way Kevin Magnussen had hoped for. The Danish race driver made one of his famous starts, moving up from P15 to P10 already on the first lap of the race, but after the first pitstop, switching to a harder compound, the American team struggled with the pace. Neither Kevin nor teammate Nico Hulkenberg managed to score points in Budapest.

“I made a decent start on the soft tires, gained a lot of positions on the first lap. However, I got overcut by a few cars and ultimately, we didn’t have the pace today to fight for points. I feel we could’ve done better in qualifying, but looking at the pace today I don’t think we were in the running for points anyway. Still, we take another lesson from this weekend and then we hope Spa is better.”

The good news is that you don’t have to wait very long for another race. Kevin, Nico, and the rest of the MoneyGram Haas F1 Team are already on their way to Belgium and the legendary Spa-Francorchamps for the 14th round of the 2024 Formula 1 World Championship later this week.