An opportunity for points fell away from Haas in Zandvoort as Nico Hulkenberg picked up his sixth P11 finish of the season, after a strategy error saw him floundering on used rubber later in the race.
He was joined in this regard by his teammate Kevin Magnussen who ran a different strategy after starting from the pits, eventually coming home eighteenth.
Despite this, at one point in the race, the Haas cars were both sat in the points, ninth and tenth respectively, with less than half of the laps to go.
What unveiled was a consequence of the one stop strategy. Hulkenberg was the second driver to make a pit stop on lap 14 in reaction to Alex Albon who stopped on lap 12.
Knowing the difficulty in making an overtake around Zandvoort, Haas made the decision to pit Hulkenberg to retain track position.
“I don’t know. I guess, you know, obviously, I think Alex stopped earlier, a lap or so. And obviously Yuki as well, and we wanted to cover them. It’s obviously a track position race, overtaking very difficult.
“And I guess the thinking was that they’re on a one-stop as well, and that we kind of need to cover.”
What this meant was the German was expected to complete the other 58 laps on one set of hard tyres, a move that eventually sealed his fate as despite catapulting himself into the points once the initial stops had been made, drivers who he had been fighting for points such as Gasly and Alonso had almost 20 laps fresher tyres and quickly disposed of him.
Such was the degradation of the hard tyres later into the stint, Albon and Yuki Tsunoda who stopped around the same time both had to bail on the strategy and commit to a two stop.
“But it turned out that, I think Yuki definitely two-stopped Alex, I don’t know. But, yeah, in hindsight, very aggressive and left us a bit vulnerable, obviously, at the end.
“And when we were in a decent position, we didn’t have the tyres to fight.”
Looking back on what he would’ve liked to do differently, Hulkenberg thought a more balanced approach that would’ve had to see him do less laps on the hard tyres would’ve benefitted his race.
“I think a more balanced one-stop would have been healthier, probably better. Before the stop, we were behind Fernando and Pierre as well, physically, that’s a fact.
“So we needed to undercut them somewhere to get in front. But I think after their stop, I was 10 seconds ahead, which is obviously quite a big gap. I need to review also all the circumstances and the reasoning.
“But right now, it feels a bit suboptimal, I’d say.”
Magnussen also struggled with the same issue, starting from the pit lane, he knew he was in for a tough day.
“I knew it was going to be a difficult race starting from the pit lane.”
To add to his frustrations, he was made to go long on his first stint on the hard tyres, pitting on lap 40, the last of the one stop runners.
Unfortunately for him, he had lost so much time on worn tyres that by the time he had stopped, he was unable to claw back the time he had lost. Emerging behind some drivers who had even made their second stop. Ending up as the last car only to be a lap down, finishing eighteenth.
