Haas pair of Nico Hulkenberg and Kevin Magnussen are not concluding of job done by the team post double points in F1 Australian GP.
Having invested itself to better its race pace and limit the tyre degradation, Haas has seemingly done a decent job in the three races where they have looked competitive to hang on against its immediate rivals and not lose out straight up.
In fact, they have managed to score four points which includes double in Australia where some lucked played in favour of them. But both Hulkenberg and Magnussen were in the position to score and even fended off competition en-route the points.
“Obviously the first VSC helped me, so it was a cheap stop, but then two times [the pit stop] was quite practical,” said Hulkenberg. “After both my stops I came out and it’s quite awkward for the car that’s on track when a car comes out of the pit lane, because we sort of park it and the closing speed is very big.
“The first time I kind of overtook Daniel that way and the second time I took Alex that way, and I’m sure they were both pretty unhappy about that! But that kind of made our race today, and together with the VSC and everything and the teamwork, so I’m very happy.
“In terms of different strategies, it usually does work. I think there’s a 70-80% success rate on if you’re at the back, you have to do something. And yeah, I think good execution, race pace you know was good enough, let’s say, within the midfield to push our luck and to do something,” summed up Hulkenberg.
Teammate Magnussen was equally happy with the double points, but VSC did not help unlike his teammate. “I don’t know, but it’s good,” he said. “We got both cars in the points, good teamwork once again. Obviously it didn’t help me with the Virtual Safety Car, the first one, but on the flip side it helped Nico so we could get him back in the battle.
“A fantastic day for us to get three points here, especially after qualifying, where things were decent but not great. Just super happy,” summed up Magnussen. Despite the points collected, both the Haas drivers did not wished to draw any conclusions just yet.
Much like Haas team boss Ayao Komatsu, both the drivers want to take time and understand it more before concluding if they have solved their problem. “I think you got to be careful with all these conclusions,” said Hulkenberg. “Obviously in Jeddah we helped our case, with a great team effort, so… we are all super close with AlphaTauri there, with I haven’t seen a Sauber in this race, but with Sauber, with Williams, with Alpine even, so you know it takes very little, and it could be a huge swing around and the other way.
“So it’s just a matter of, always maximizing your weekend every session, and so far I think we’ve been good with that, also somewhat lucky on my side, which is always obviously nice, but eventually the others will also face some luck, so important is that we develop the car and, you know, just get stronger on merit,” summed up Hulkenberg.
Teammate Magnussen concurred: “The performance this year in general has been encouraging. We were able to get both cars in the points, and okay, we were helped by a few people crashing out, but that is part of the game too. We beat some of the cars that we’re in the constructors’ battle with, we started behind one Sauber and one Williams – and finished ahead of those.
“As I said, the VSC didn’t help me, but we worked as a team, and finished with two cars in the points and with decent pace. The car has a bigger window, it has not necessarily got more downforce, it’s just more usable downforce and it is now good in more than just one condition.
“New tyres, low fuel last year was okay, but we really struggled in the race, so the team has focused in that direction over the winter, so it is really cool to see it pay off and we just need to continue like that and go further in that direction. I don’t think we can say the whole season is fixed, but it is encouraging so far and we want to keep going.”
Here’s how F1 Australian GP panned out
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