Nico Hülkenberg said “it was one of the toughest and worst races of the season” after a point-less outing in the Italian Grand Prix for Haas.
The American team failed to score a point at Monza, the 36-year-old ended up in 17th place, just ahead of his teammate Kevin Magnussen.
Hülkenberg said post-race that his VF-23 had no better race pace than previous events: “It is very much more of the same and even worse, to be honest.
“On the low downforce package. Once the tyre is gone through the fresh tyre life, it’s just one way, one direction, and that’s backwards.
“We’re just eating the tyre; the balance is poor. We’re sliding a lot more than other cars. We can’t keep the pace up and using more tyres.”
Haas has floundered in 2023, scoring just 11 points and sitting eighth in the championship, as McLaren and Williams have made significant gains in performance. Albon’s P7 at Monza leaves the Amercian-owned team 10 points behind Williams now.
Monza marks the end of Formula 1’s European season; the 10 teams have Singapore and Japan to contend with next.
Hülkenberg is feeling more hopeful about those two events after the disappointing race in Italy, despite not feeling capable of closing down Williams’ 10-point advantage in the championship
“I am cautiously optimistic, but I think we should be in a better place, at least in a better place in the midfield, closer to being in a race because today it felt like we were nowhere, and everyone was just driving through us, and we were not in the race.
“To be honest, Williams, they look like they’re gone. They and McLaren obviously made huge progress this year. I don’t see how we can turn this around unless we find something really magic.”
Magnussen admitted post-race that his starting on the hard strategy just didn’t pay off as the car was horrendous to drive in race trim on Sunday afternoon.
“It should have been possible, but we just had no grip at all.
“And the car was so over-balanced, there was no chance. I mean, we couldn’t even take off enough front wing. The flap couldn’t go down low enough. And horrendous, really bad.”
