Nico Hülkenberg carried on his fine form from the Austrian Grand Prix as he qualified a superb P6 at Silverstone, beating Carlos Sainz in the works Ferrari.
Qualifying had almost finished before it really got started, however.
“Yeah, much too close for comfort, or too close for comfort,” he said, when asked about having almost been caught out in Q1.
The German explained that while there had been a dry racing line at the beginning of the session, the team had decided to keep him in the garage as they believed that the track would dry quickly, allowing him to avoid using the intermediate tyres that they other teams had chosen to run in the early wet conditions.
He said that when the team realised that the track was not drying as quickly as expected, the decision had been made to send him out. This, however, was prevented by a red flag caused by Red Bull’s Sergio Perez.
He added that the rain at the end of the session had also eventually come into play, and as a result, he had only been able to complete a single lap time.
The brief shower during the open segment passed and plenty of drivers improved right at the end, with Hülkenberg dropping to P15 but squeezing through.
“Yeah, obviously there was immediately a dry line at the beginning of Q1. Obviously, we saw everyone going out on inters, but we said, okay, it’s going to be slicks very soon. Then it took a bit longer than expected.
“Then the red flag of Checo, I was about to go out and the red flag came out.
“And then at the end, the rain also came into it. So, yeah, very spicy situation. I had one lap, which was just about good enough to get us through, otherwise that would have been quite disastrous.”
Hülkenberg also spoke about his final run in the third qualifying session which saw him losing time in the third sector after going purple in sector 1.
“Yeah, in turn 13 I ran out of road. I picked up a lot of understeer and didn’t stay on the line that I wanted to. And I feel somehow I really, with that understeer, I had cracked the tyre and didn’t have [anything] left for turn 15. And lost all the time that I had, unfortunately.”
When asked why his performance in sector 1 had been strong throughout qualifying, Hülkenberg said, “I don’t know.”
The Haas driver was also questioned on his preferred weather condition for Sunday’s race. He stated he had no preference, but expressed his expectation that the weather would be similar to that during Saturday’s qualifying.
“Not really. I mean, I think the weather is like this. There is rain around and it could happen any moment. It could be mixed conditions. It could be just like this. No, to be honest, no real preference.”
Hülkenberg was questioned on whether he believed that his impressive qualifying performance was as a result of recent updates brought by Haas. The VF-24 came to Silverstone with an all-new radiator inlet, floor, diffuser and engine cover.
The 36-year-old stated that he could feel the improvements.
“I think definitely some of it was because of it and from it. Hard to judge always exactly how much. But I was really happy and immediately felt them in P2 yesterday, which is always a positive sign. I’ve had that in the past. When you put updates on and you don’t feel them, it’s usually not great. But this time around it was really noticeable and very positive.”
When questioned further on the potential of the upgrade package, the German stated that he did not know and would need to see what happened during the race.
He added that he also could not predict how the package would perform in Hungary due to different downforce levels and highlighted the need to learn more about the package.
“I don’t know. We need to work with it, do a race with it tomorrow. See what happens. Budapest, different downforce level. So, there’s still things to learn and exploit about it. To be honest, I don’t know what’s more to expect or to come from it. Maybe more, maybe not.”
The Haas driver was asked about his recent race pace, which was noted as being better than his pace over a single lap, as shown in Austria.
While Hülkenberg acknowledged that he did not think that Haas would be able to keep up with the top four teams, he expressed optimism that they would be able to fight for points with the other teams.
“I’m optimistic that we can… I think the top four teams, they’re gone. They’re not within reach. But everyone else behind that, I think we can fight with.”
Though he acknowledged that he had outperformed both Ferrari drivers, he stated that this had only been over a single lap, and expressed that the Italian team’s performance had been abnormal.
He added that he did not expect to be able to outperform Sainz and Leclerc in the longer runs.
“Yeah, over one lap. I don’t know, maybe they had issues. I think Leclerc out in Q2, that’s obviously not normal. And it was obviously not a usual quali. It was a bit special circumstance. But in long runs, we’re not there with them.”
