A tough weekend for HaasF1 duo

Haas F1 Team drivers Kevin Magnussen and Romain Grosjean qualified 18th and 19th, respectively, for the Mexican Grand Prix Sunday at AutódromoHermanos Rodríguez in Mexico City. However, with grid penalties incurred by others, Magnussen will start 16th and Grosjean will start 17th.

“We have had a tough weekend,' said Grosjean. “We didn't run anything yesterday, so of course there's always performance there. I had a very poor out lap at the end with a lot of traffic, so there were a few tenths in hand, but nothing that would put us where we should be.”

‘There's no excuse. We've got a 2017 Ferrari engine, which is more powerful than the Sauber one. We'll need to work, and we'll need to find a way to make the car faster at the circuits where we need extra downforce. It's going to be 71 laps with a handful of a car to drive tomorrow.”

‘Anything is possible. I don't want to be super positive saying everything's going to be great, but you never know in the race. It's a tough circuit and cooling is a problem for everyone. Brakes are going to struggle. In Singapore, we were not supposed to score points and we did. There's always hope, but definitely it's going to be a tough one.”

The struggles of Friday seeped into Saturday, with neither driver able to advance from Q1. As they chased grip throughout the 4.304-kilometer (2.674-mile), 17-turn circuit, they were unable to crack the top-15 cutoff to get into Q2.

Magnussen set the 18th-fastest time with a lap of 1:19.443. Grosjean was just behind his teammate in 19th with a lap of 1:19.473. Both drivers used the Pirelli P Zero Purple ultrasoft tire.

“We had feared this weekend would be tough,” Magnussen added. “We obviously weren't very quick in qualifying. This track is like our Achilles' heel. It was kind of expected, but it's still disappointing. We just have to push on. “

“The issues are a combination of things. I'd say with the air being so thin here, everyone has to cool their cars a lot more, open up their cooling on the brakes, engine, water, everything. When we do that, we don't have a very good top cooling when it's open. We lose out there, and it seems very bad this time.”

“Hopefully we can stay in the fight tomorrow, and at least push and see what we can get. I hope our race pace is a bit better than our qualifying pace.”