After an intense race in Austria, starting from 9th on the grid, German driver, Nico Hülkenberg managed to secure a superb 6thplace.
He spoke on how he didn’t feel like everything was okay when stepping into the car on Friday, unable to find his usual “rhythm and confidence”. Hülkenberg was outqualified and comfortably beaten in the Sprint by teammate Kevin Magnussen.
As the weekend progressed, the German found his footing and landed himself into Q3 on Saturday afternoon, before a brilliant result on Sunday.
He detailed the turnaround post-race.
“I stepped into the car on Friday, maybe with the wrong foot, it just, you know, it didn’t feel right.
“I didn’t get the rhythm and the confidence that I normally have, and things were just a little awkward.”
“I was on the back foot in that sprint quali, and it’s only two laps, you only have one set of tyres.
“So it’s very unforgiving if you don’t have that good feeling on a track like this where the margins are super fine, and a few details on top of that went wrong, you’re just on the wrong side of it.
“Then the sprint race, obviously, I managed to kind of work my way in with the car, with the feeling, made some more changes, set-up into quali, and then even in quali, it was still a process from Q1 to Q2, I kept finding rhythm and harmony.”
The Austrian Grand Prix was an intense battle for the 36-year-old, after he was undercut by his teammate, Kevin Magnussen on lap 10 as they covered Daniel Ricciardo with the Dane.
Magnussen initially passed Hülkenberg on the run to turn 3 as the German came out of the pits, but Hülkenberg found his way by a lap later.
“I think they stopped him obviously early because he was under pressure, he was getting undercut from I guess an RB, but undercut is super powerful here, so obviously I wasn’t so impressed with that, and I think there was a lack of instruction.”
After making his second stop, the 36-year-old found himself behind Max Verstappen who was a lap ahead. The Haas driver was in his DRS until the Dutch driver pitted as the tyre degradation was big.
When asked whether he felt strange being directly behind the reigning three-time World Champion and could have gone faster if he passed him, Hülkenberg stated that he was “not sure, maybe I could have gone a little bit faster without him, but I don’t think it compromised our race or hurt it.
“I mean, I stayed within probably 10 laps, maybe even a bit more, I stuck with his DRS, which obviously, you get towed around, which is free lap time, but in some of the corners, I was obviously losing some downforce.
“I thought about it [remaining in front] while I was still ahead of him.
“But then I would have had to push so much and invest too much tyre, which would have come at a cost at the end, so obviously I had blue flags, so I had to let him by, and I thought he would kind of disappear.
“But obviously he was quite late in the stint, so I had just new tyres and he was on old tyres, so quite a big tyre delta.
“But still I was managing my tyres a lot and conserving upwind.”
The final laps brought an intense battle with an ailing Sergio Pérez (sidepod damage) for the Haas driver. The straight-line speed of the VF-24 allowed the German to stay ahead, pushing his car to its limits, driving as hard as he could on much older rubber.
The 2010 Brazilian GP polesitter managed to hold the Mexican Red Bull driver behind until the chequered flag, after his brilliant defence technique. He allowed Pérez past before turn 3 on the final lap, using DRS on the next straight to take the place back.
“Very intense race, especially at the end with Checo. Didn’t expect to be able to keep him behind for so long, but like I said, I tried a couple of laps, and said to myself, let’s see what happens, maybe I can f*** with his tyres a little bit, and then that’s actually what happened.
“I managed to with our straight-line speed keep my nose ahead, and start defending also.”
Hülkenberg spoke on just how strong the cars of the American-owned team truly are, focusing on just how many top ten finishes they have fought for within the first half of the season.
Haas has finished in 11th on five separate occasions now with the German, as well as four points scoring finishes.
The team has generally fallen away throughout previous seasons in the development race. 2024 is proving to be different to date.
“Not just today, but if I look at the first 10 races now, five times obviously we’ve been 11th, very close, but we’ve been fighting in and around the top 10 pretty much everywhere.
“I think it’s a testament to the good work we’ve done over the winter, it just shows that we are competitive in the midfield.”
