Nico Hülkenberg’s strong start to the 2024 Formula One season continued as he bagged a valuable point for Haas in the Chinese GP.
Starting 9th, the German passed the Ferraris into turns 6 and 8 on the opening lap to briefly run as high as P7. However, Leclerc, Sainz and Stroll all overtook him in quick formation to leave him in P10 at the end of lap 2.
“Lap 1 was fun to get both Ferraris,” said Hülkenberg.
From there, Hülkenberg was passed by Bottas at the end of lap 7 as he dropped outside of the points. However, Haas performed the undercut on the Finn and Hülkenberg regained the net position.
The 36-year-old ended up benefitting from that contentious clash between Stroll and Ricciardo on the restart, moving into P9.
He held Lewis Hamilton off for almost 10 laps before the Brit made a beautiful pass into turn 9. Fernando Alonso came back through on his fresh tyres towards the end as well to confirm a P10 for Hülkenberg, just over 2s clear of Esteban Ocon.
The lead Haas driver was very pleased with many factors on Sunday.
“Yeah, I mean, it was a very clean race in every way. Very happy, pleased about that.
“I managed to also keep Lewis behind for quite some time.
“It just goes to show we need a perfect quali and a perfect race to get a point.
“Good calls on the strategy too in the first stop to undercut the Alfa Romeo, who later then dropped out. But, no, very, very positive weekend for us.
“And even then we needed help from one of the top cars, which today was obviously one Aston Martin, not being where he should be.
“So yeah, it just shows how difficult it is and how crucial though it is to be ready and there when the opportunity presents itself.
“So, very happy we managed to get it.”
Hülkenberg had a nightmare Sprint, falling through the field and finishing 19th, last of the classified runners.
The 2010 Brazilian Grand Prix polesitter admitted that set-up changes between the Sprint and standard qualifying turned their weekend around, allowing him to manage his tyres far better over the long stints as well.
“Yeah, definitely. It was a big turning point for us after the Sprint race to correct the car and the set-up for sure.
“And then it’s also very important to have a clean quali, to start ahead, to have track position, because the clean air is very, very valuable for us.
“In the midfield if you run behind a bunch of cars it just kills you. So that is also one very important aspect.”
Haas moved to within 2 points of RB F1 for P6 in the Constructors’ Championship thanks to the P10 in China. Nonetheless, Hülkenberg is wary that one of Alpine, Sauber or Williams (all yet to score), could benefit from a properly chaotic race and jump them in the standings.
“Yeah, little by little [we bag points], but I think sometime down the line there must be a crazy weekend when one of us in the midfield has a crazy result and jumps everyone.”
On the incident between Ricciardo and Stroll at the restart that handed him 2 free positions and left the Australian in a very angry mood as he had to retire, Hülkenberg had a degree of sympathy for the Canadian over what happened.
“It was pretty spectacular going into Turn 14.
“All I saw was Lance not really slowing down and he really lifted up Daniel and I went around the corner and I didn’t see them anymore.
“So I obviously continued because as far as I was concerned, they crashed and I couldn’t tell if they had continued.
“I think maybe Lance got caught off guard a bit, it happens.
“This concertina effect is quite big. And I think especially on Safety Car restarts, maybe he had cold brakes and didn’t have full stopping power.”
