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via Reuters

via Reuters

Haas F1 team has impressed everyone with their performance in the first 2 practice sessions at the Bahrain Grand Prix. The drivers Mick Schumacher and Kevin Magnussen finished the FP2 session in P8 and P10, respectively. The car’s performance is a surprise for everyone, none more so than Haas’ returning driver Magnussen.

The Danish driver mentioned he cannot believe how competitive the American team currently is. When Kevin was last driving for Haas in 2020, they were struggling to get out of the bottom 5 off the grid. So the pace and the competitiveness of the 2022 cars is a shock to him.

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Kevin Magnussen excited for the first race after impressive practice showing

As reported by The Race, Kevin mentioned the car felt really good throughout the 2 practice sessions. The most surprising thing was how well the car was in the long runs, just as it was at pace with frontrunners on the grid.

“I can’t even believe what’s going on. It’s so cool. I feel very lucky. The car’s been feeling good all day again, like last week. In FP1 we were focusing a little more on race set-up and race feeling and we weren’t trying to set a lap time. In FP2 we did a quali sim. Still not fully going for it, but more like a quali sim and that looked better on the times.” said Magnussen.

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But I think the long run was what I was really encouraged by. The car just felt so consistent and lap times were really strong. I’m still very excited,” said the Haas F1 driver.

via Reuters

Although the pace shown by the car was encouraging, it would be interesting to see if the Danish driver could qualify in the top 10 on his return to the sport.

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There is an excellent opportunity for Haas to start strongly as most of the teams are currently struggling with their setups in their cars. If they can have both cars in the top 10 of the qualifying session, then it would be a real achievement for a team that finished last in the 2021 season.