For Nico Hülkenberg, the results of the Miami GP were mixed. After a successful Sprint race in which the German earned two points after finishing seventh after starting in tenth position, he was unable to repeat this success in the race, ending in eleventh place, and subsequently, outside of the points, despite qualifying ninth on Saturday.
Despite this, Hülkenberg described his race as being fun due, in part, to the deployment of the Safety Car after an incident between Hülkenberg’s teammate, Kevin Magnussen, and Logan Sargeant.
Hülkenberg pitted early on lap 12 after losing position to Lewis Hamilton following a great back and forth battle in the early laps.
He returned to the track in P15 following his pit stop, behind Daniel Ricciardo of VCARB. This early stop meant that Hülkenberg lost out on the “cheap stop” that his teammate benefitted from when the Virtual Safety Car (VSC) was deployed a few laps later.
The 36-year-old was, however, able to take advantage of a second pit stop in Lap 28 under the Safety Car. The German charged through from P16 to P11 in the last stint, overtaking Ricciardo, Guanyu, Albon and Gasly along the way.
When asked about how the drivers had benefitted from pitting at the right time under the VSC and Safety car, Hülkenberg described it as a “bit of a mixed bag”.
“Yeah, I think [it was] a bit of a mixed bag. I need to look at it. I think that under the VSC we lost. I mean, without the safety car, I think we weren’t going anywhere so that kind of puts us back on the map and gave us, obviously, a cheap stop, and while I had lost track position by then, I had fresh tyres and was able to attack again.
“All in all, just the first 50% of the race we weren’t competitive or strong enough to keep up there. [But] after the safety car it was a pretty fun race.
“A lot of racing actually for me today. Also, in the beginning with the Mercedes’. It was cool.”
After a poor start from Russell which saw the Mercedes driver dropping to P10 from his P7 start, Hülkenberg was able to battle, and quickly pass Hamilton, who had started P8, to take up seventh position.
The battle between Hamilton and Hülkenberg continued for several more laps, during which time, Hamilton briefly overtook Hülkenberg in lap 7, only to then lose his position after a lock-up which sent him wide at turn 17. After fighting for several more laps, Hamilton was once again able to overtake Hülkenberg.
When asked further about his “nice” battle with Hamilton at the beginning of the race, Hülkenberg added:“Yeah, with him at the beginning, that’s true, but then I also had the safety car — there was some fun stuff going on.”
Although he described the race as “fun”, Hülkenberg also admitted that it was tough, due to a lack of grip, which in turn leads to a lack of pace.
The Haas driver stated that he struggled with the balance, particularly in the high-speed corners, and attributed that the VF-24 had comparatively low downforce compared to the cars around them.
“Well, [we] were both already on the medium, [but] it didn’t go well – the first stint. We pitted early — I think around lap 11 — and even then, on the hards, they didn’t have the pace, the grip and the balance.
“The balance was actually pretty important today but very different between high speed and low speed. It was completely opposite balance, so it was very difficult to get it right and to manage it. So it was a tough race from that point of view.”
When asked about why he seemed to have fallen back in the later stages of the race as he could not get within DRS range of Esteban Ocon for P10, the German reiterated that this was due to losing time in the high speed before the long straight in the middle sector.
“Yeah, I didn’t have enough. I think that we had the car [or] probably one of the cars with the least downforce and that’s obviously good in a straight but in those high-speed corners – 5, 6, 7, 8 – I was losing.
“On top of that I was struggling for balance so… yeah, I could follow them but not really make a serious move.”
The Haas driver did express that the weekend had been a positive one for the team, despite missing out on points during the race, and Hülkenberg indicated that the team was planning on adding some new upgrades ahead of the Emilia Romagna GP to “close the loop” on the first upgrade package.
“All in all, look, obviously, it would have been amazing to score points today, but [it was] still a very positive weekend for us. We take away more learnings, obviously, from here.
“[In] Imola, we get some more upgrades and kind of close the loop on that first package. So, very encouraging and look forward to that.”
When asked whether he though that the upgrades would be useful in Imola, Hülkenberg stated that the aim was to improve the car for all races.
He added that the team would assess the performance of these upgrades in FP1 through Reserve Driver, Ollie Bearman. The Brit will be running the older package, with Hülkenberg taking the new one.
He did admit, however, that it was “impossible” to tell how the current upgrades had performed due to the differences between the tracks.
“I think [they] are not just pointed fat Imola. They [are] just not for there but for everywhere. They should just make the car better and then faster.
“I think that the plan is to do it in Imola with Ollie Bearman in FP1. So he’ll run the old car package [and] I will run the new and then we [will] have a proper comparison.
“It’s always impossible to tell because it doesn’t change the world. Every track feels different anyway. Different tyres… different downforce levels so yeah… can’t say.”
