Haas team boss Guenther Steiner has admitted his team is “in a hole” after a disappointing weekend at the British Grand Prix that saw Kevin Magnussen suffer an engine failure.
Magnussen had no warning before the Ferrari power unit in the back of his Haas expired midway through Sunday’s race, his car spluttering to a halt exiting The Loop on Lap 32 while running 14th.
Pulling the car to the side of the Wellington Straight, with smoke billowing from the back end, it triggered a race-changing Safety Car.
Magnussen had been running 14th at the time, moving forward after lining up 19th on the grid and dropping to last on the opening lap.
“It was okay in terms of tyre deg, actually,” he said of his race up to his retirement.
“Pace wasn’t strong, so I think we would have struggled a lot to get into the top 10 – would have needed some, like a Safety Car or something, which could have happened.
“At the moment, it’s a little too hard to be in the top 10, can’t really get there without something certainly happening, so need to look for that next step.”
It was a difficult weekend for Haas and Magnussen, who’d also rolled to a stop during qualifying.
“Couldn’t finish qualifying, I couldn’t finish the race, so obviously not my weekend,” he lamented.
“Got to just stay focused, try to look for that next step of improvement.
“I think we were fighting a little bit too hard right now to get into the top 10.
“We’ve just got to push together as a team and work harder and move forward.”
Haas has endured a troubled 2023 campaign in which it’s often performed well on Saturdays only to fall back as the car struggles with degradation on Sundays.
That has often seen strong qualifying results, as seen by Nico Hulkenberg in Austria, which inflates the expectations come the race.
In Silverstone, Hulkenberg started 11th but drifted to 14th at the chequered flag, his race compromised after early contact with Sergio Perez.
That sent the German into the pits for a new front wing, remaining at the back of the pack until the Safety Car triggered by Magnussen, after which he moved beyond both Scuderia AlphaTauris and Zhou Guanyu.
“It’s been a very disappointing weekend,” conceded team principal Guenther Steiner.
“We just didn’t have the pace and we’ve now had our third engine failure in three races as well – that doesn’t help us,” the Haas boss added
“We have to regroup and see how we move forward from here because we need to get out of this hole.
“Everybody will be working on it obviously, but today was simply not a good day.”
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