Magnussen: I ran out of talent

Magnussen almost threw everything away during Q3, when he spun his VF22 at Acque Minerali, narrowly missing the barrier, but was able to get the car back on track and deliver fourth place for his team, his starting grid position for Saturday's Sprint Race at Imola, and Haas' best qualifying result yet.

His teammate Mick Schumacher was out from Q2 and down in 12th.

"I ran out of talent!" Magnussen was quoted by Formula 1's official website. "I did [think qualifying was over]. I touched the white line and then it was gone, and I thought I was going to hit the wall.

"I then went into the gravel and slowed down quite a lot so I realised – I saw the anti-stall, pulled the clutch while I was still backwards, and then went onto the throttle just enough to get onto that escape road. Yeah, lucky!

"I’m super-pleased," he went on. "It's another unbelievable result for us. The car was just great, so fast and a joy to drive – so proud of the team.

The mixed conditions gave many teams a chance to take advantage, and Haas was one of those who capitalized on that, at least with Magnussen who revealed: "We were more competitive in the wet, we made the tyres work better, but in the dry we got through to Q3 still in P7.

"They weren’t fantastic laps from my side and we were still dialling in the car, so it’s very positive. And it’s going to be dry tomorrow it looks like. It’s not easy to overtake on this track so I’m hoping I can stay in the top eight and get some points," the Dane explained.

"I want to start in the good position for the Sunday race," he added. "We’re in P4. In the dry, I don't think we're fast enough to be P4, but it's a tricky track to overtake, so if I can get around the first lap in P4, that’s going to be super.

"If I lose a position or two after that, you know, we still get points and a great position for Sunday," the 29-year-old mused.

"Of course I always want to finish higher than fourth, but we’ve also got to be realistic and clever. I feel like I want to push, I’m so close to the top now… You can win from P4! But we’re not fast enough to do that.

"We’re in a different battle, we’ve got to remember what we’re trying to do and benefit from this great result today in a clever way," the one-time podium sitter maintained.

Mick Schumacher wasn't so lucky, as he was knocked out from Q2, and will start the Sprint Race from 12th, the German lamenting a mistake at Turn 7.

"A mistake at Turn 7 led to me losing over a second so I think we would've been through," he said in the team report after the race. "It's a shame but now we have two more races to come and hopefully we'll be able to fight our way through – the car feels great.

"Already in Melbourne we were able to fight pretty hard with the cars around us and one thing which was very positive was that we were able to keep the tires alive for quite a while.

"It's all to play for tomorrow and hopefully we have a bit of luck on our side to be able to maybe get into the points," Schumacher concluded.

Hass team boss Guenther Steiner hailed the team result and said: "A very good day today. They were very challenging weather conditions and I know that is the same for everyone but after Australia we really needed this, and we bounced back.

"In Australia, we didn't have a fantastic weekend but this weekend we all started right on Friday morning, confidence levels were high. Finishing with Kevin in P4 is fantastic – it's another best for Haas F1 Team.

"For Mick, he was almost there, just a little bit missing but P12 is not a bad position to be starting the race so starting fourth and 12th, let's see what we can do tomorrow," Steiner concluded.