Kevin Magnussen (P18): 4.5/10
Kevin Magnussen and Nico Hulkenberg may have just re-signed for another season with Haas but they must be hoping and praying that the team gives them a better car next year. The VF-23's chronic issue with tyre wear leaves them exposed every time. At least Hulkenberg is able to wring some single lap pace out of it to make them look half way decent in qualifying, but even that seems beyond Magnussen who was slowest-but-one in Q1. It left him with no where to go on race day, in the end slogging his way across the line a lap down and just behind his equally frustrated team mate. "Probably the worst race of the season, and that’s saying something." Yes, it is.
Nico Hulkenberg (P17): 5.5/10
It was a familiar pattern for Haas this weekend, with Nico Hulkenberg doing surprisingly well on short runs (top ten in both FP2 and FP3), although the need to use medium tyres in the second round of qualifying (because of the Alternative Tyre Allocation format in effect in Monza) blunted his chances of making it through to Q3 and left him starting from P13. And the high speed, low downforce nature of the circuit once again left Hulkenberg struggling for tyre life over race distance, gradually falling down the order until he and his team mate Kevin Magnussen were right at the back and a lap off the leaders. Pretty much where we - and even they - expected to find them.
