Kevin Magnussen admits it is frustrating to see Haas struggle for race pace but is sure a solution can be found.
The American outfit started the season with an apparent comfortable margin at the front of the midfield only for tyre issues to severely limit their performance versus their rivals.
Another strong race in Barcelona suggested progress had been made, but it has been downhill since with the Dane and teammate Romain Grosjean often fighting just above Williams on a Sunday.
“I think this season it’s tougher because we see such great potential in the car in qualifying and then we can’t extract any of that potential in the race,” he said.
“Even though we don’t score points right now, I still find it amazing that we can qualify where we are qualifying.
“When you are part of this team and you see it from the inside, we shouldn’t be able to challenge Red Bull in qualifying pace. It shouldn’t be possible.”
Magnussen was referring to his fifth place on the grid in Austria before a gearbox penalty dropped him down to 10th, however, highlighting the issue, the Dane would go on to finish that race in 19th.
“We are disappointed we can’t do it in the race, but there’s got to be a way to find out why and we are working on that,” the Haas driver insists.
“I think it has kind of hit us in our weak spot, this problem, I think, it’s not a problem of designing a good car, I think we’ve done that, there’s something stopping us from extracting the full potential of the car in race conditions
“It’s got to be a combination of lots of little different details, the solution, and that just takes analysis, but being the smallest team on the grid we lack people to do that.”
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As the wait goes on to extract that performance, Magnussen is still maintaining trust in Haas to once again be competitive.
“I haven’t got any concerns because I think, as I said, we’ve been in a way unlucky that we’ve been hit with this kind of problem, a tyre problem,” he said.
“Fair enough other teams can sort it out. It’s just we’ve been hit in our weakest spot I guess.
“Hopefully, sometime that will change, the tyres, and if not we’ll work it out eventually.”
