Nico Hulkenberg’s Saturday at the Chinese Grand Prix was a rollercoaster of events. Initially plummeting to dead last during the Sprint as he destroyed his tyres, he later managed to secure P9 in qualifying, a significant improvement. He placed P6, P9 and P9 in the 3 qualifying segments.
Despite a pit lane incident in Q1 that earned him a reprimand for passing cars in the fast lane, Hulkenberg retained his qualifying position.
Speaking afterwards, Hulkenberg expanded that it was “necessary” for the FIA to permit set-up changes after the Sprint section of the weekend ahead of the main qualifying for the Grand Prix.
“Yes. But it was also, I think, a necessary thing, because one session is just not enough.
“And it’s also not fun for us drivers [when they cannot make set-up changes part-way through the sprint weekend].
“We love driving, but I also love playing and working with a set-up. If you have only 60 minutes and that’s it, that part wasn’t so great about the sprints, so I feel this is a much better way.”
When asked if he preferred a longer session to compensate for the lack of second and third practices, Hulkenberg emphasised that it wasn’t the main issue.
“It changes stuff, you know. Between sessions, you always have time to sit down, you analyse the data, and you come to a bigger conclusion.
“In [a] session, you never have time for big set-up changes because you want to maximise track time, so I don’t think that’s the key, really.”
Haas made changes to Hulkenberg’s car ahead of qualifying as they looked to make gains on car pace through set-up work. However, it didn’t pay off.
After getting knocked out in SQ2, he dropped to the back of the field and finished last of the drivers who saw the chequered flag in the Sprint as his tyres fell off a cliff.
“Yeah, that’s connected and related to that set-up change we did after FP1.
“Obviously, we wanted to make the better. It took a wrong turn and behaved very unexpectedly and basically flipped on its head.
“We tried after P1 obviously to improve the car, but it reacted in a very strange way, and it went the wrong way.”
Looking ahead to Sunday’s race, Hulkenberg expressed cautious optimism about fighting for poins, despite expecting a tough challenge.
“Obviously, we were stuck with that this morning, but now this afternoon, it’s better. It’s more in line with what it should be, so I’m happy, but I expect a tough race tomorrow.
“I think it’s going to be a stretch for us, but I look forward to it.
“We can only speculate now, tomorrow we’ll see and find out; I think Kev was hanging in there pretty alright this morning, so that makes me optimistic that we can fight these guys tomorrow.”
