Nico Hülkenberg will be starting the 2024 Miami Grand Prix from the fifth row of the grid in 9th. The Haas driver’s 1:28.146 saw him snatch that 9th position start, narrowly ahead of Tsunoda’s 1:28.192 as Haas and RB F1’s close fight continues.
Despite the improvement on last year’s 12th position start, the 36-year-old believes it is tricky to complete a seemingly perfect lap around Miami.
It was almost an even better grid spot as he was less than a tenth off George Russell in P7.
“I think it was close with Lewis [Hamilton], less than half a tenth, that’s always a bit of a bummer.
“But tricky, really tricky here in Miami actually to string the perfect laps together. It’s a challenging track with the hot temps and with the tyres getting hotter over the lap. It’s really tricky in those sections from 11 to 16.”
In Q2, the German’s Haas incurred a DRS issue, which left him running with no working DRS on his second attempt. Thankfully for him, this issue was repaired quite quickly.
During his first lap before the issues incurred, he was able to produce a lap worthy of making Q3, his third appearance in the final segment of qualifying this campaign so far.
“Also now in Q2, we had a problem with the DRS that wasn’t working.
“But they repaired it quick. My first run was good enough to get us through.”
Even with a 9th position start for Hülkenberg, he will still need to push hard in today’s race to fight off the RB of Tsunoda along with all the cars behind him if he wants to stay in the points, including both Aston Martins.
The Haas driver has shown that he has confidence in his performance and the car, enough to be in contention for higher positions in tomorrow’s feature race.
“It’s going to be tight again and a big fight with the RBs and everyone behind for sure.
“From what I’ve seen, we looked definitely in the ballpark and should be able to fight these guys.”
In last year’s Miami Grand Prix, we saw the driver starting from 9th, Max Verstappen, go on to win the race. He understandably does not expect a repeat.
Hülkenberg puts down his Saturday success to teamwork and execution.
“Good teamwork, good execution. Just everything. There’s so much detail and so many opportunities to make mistakes.
“Yeah, well, that was Max Verstappen in the Red Bull. I think slightly, slightly different story.
“All the cars ahead of us, they usually have more downforce, more race pace. I expect I will fight with Yuki [Tsunoda], who is right behind me, and then all the other guys that are there.”
