Kevin Magnussen admitted to being "gutted" by his Q1 exit in qualifying in Barcelona knowing that his Haas had the potential of reaching Q3 as demonstrated by his teammate Nico Hulkenberg.
Magnussen was left stranded in the lower tier of the field after the first segment of qualifying despite seemingly untroubled runs on the soft tyre.
But while Hulkenberg showed spectacular progress as he concluded Q1 among the field's top five, Magnussen was left six tenths adrift from his teammate in 17th position.
The Dane reckoned that his VF-23's very narrow set-up window had put him on the margin in the session.
"I think this weekend has been very up and down," Magnussen told the media.
"On our side we’ve had sessions where we thought we were really quick, and me and Nico, one session I was much quicker than him, another session he was much quicker than me.
"In quali he was a fair bit quicker than me. It’s not been a weekend where we’ve been following each other [on set-up], we’ve been on different set-ups, and it seems like that window of the car working is very, very small.
"When you get that [window], it’s a good performance, as he showed in Q1.
"I’m pretty gutted to be P17, knowing there’s that kind of performance in the car, but all I can do is understand where it went wrong and do a better job tomorrow."
©Haas
On the other side of the Haas garage, Hulkenberg's efforts eventually carried the German to P8, his best qualifying result to date with the US outfit.
"That’s our best qualifying of the season so far, clean and well executed by the team and myself" commented the Hulk.
"It’s positive and a very decent position to start the race from. Track position is pretty valuable here in Barcelona, so we’ll take that and get ready for a tough fight.
"It’s not going to be an easy race, it’s going to be a tyre degradation race with strategy, and we have to play our cards well, but the car has been performing and I feel within the midfield we’re definitely competitive."
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