Haas pair of Nico Hulkenberg and Kevin Magnussen were fine to go the other way in F1 Canadian GP in terms of strategy which was worth the try.
Out of the 20 drivers, it was only the Haas pair of Hulkenberg and Magnussen who took upon a different strategy to start the F1 Canadian GP. While everybody used the intermediate compound, the two opted to start on full wets.
And it paid dividends too, while Magnussen improved to fourth at one stage, Hulkenberg was not far behind in seventh at one point. But as the rain slowed and the track started to dry out, the intermediate compound came alive for others to catch.
Magnussen pitted early but a slow stop dropped quite far off the points, which included being behind teammate Hulkenberg, who started at the back of the grid. Eventually they missed points by just, finishing 11th and 12th with the German ahead of the Dane.
There was opportunity to score but for Hulkenberg, everything went downhill since the start of the weekend when he didn’t feel in-sync with the car and ended up being 19th in qualifying. He went through some scary moments in the grand prix too.
That included a moment against spinning Yuki Tsunoda where he missed by just. “Yeah, the strategy paid off for I don’t know…maybe for first 10 laps,” said Hulkenberg. “We were gaining a lot, picking up a lot of positions, but eventually it stopped raining and started to dry and it kind of got reversed, undone the work we did.
“I mean, the race with so much stuff happening, difficult to get everything together. I think we were a bit unlucky with the first safety car but I don’t remember exactly now…the timing to go on slicks was good, not on the early side because it was difficult in Sector 1 mostly.
“It was an interesting race, very intense, very sketchy, had a couple of scare moments too, couple of near in the wall but I guess it is normal in these conditions. There were a couple of moments where I was like ‘I haven’t, no, I haven’t, no’, I let go of the steering because it was full opposite lock and I was about to grab to the clutch and then somehow it stopped and I was able to catch it.
“But yeah, that was one of them and then other at Turn 4 earlier, it was when still more wet, I lost it there but still manage to save it,” summed up Hulkenberg, who elaborated that they didn’t miss any opportunity in the race per se and investigation needs to be done to understand what went wrong on his side of the garage.
“I don’t think in the race, there was any opportunity,” said Hulkenberg. “The missed opportunity for me was in qualifying and generally all weekend, the problem we had somehow is not…I think fully healthy on the aero side or somewhere. I still feel after the race that I had a problem with it, it was not fully at 100% which it is supposed to be.
“Obviously you do what you can with what you have but obviously also not having the Friday, not having time to react. It is just all together with a difficult weekend with the circumstances. I mean, as I said, the whole weekend [didn’t work out], especially on my side of the garage from Lap 1.
“I didn’t feel right and happy with the car and we need to investigate as to what was going on because that really compromised our weekend and obviously everything that happened and then quail, it cost us a better result. I am sure with the magic quail that we normally have, if we started further ahead, we would have scored points, so it is kind of a missed opportunity.”
Magnussen felt the choice from Haas was right, but they didn’t execute it properly in the sense that the decisions post that initial thought weren’t necessarily was right for them. The slow pit stop too cost them dearly but he was fine that they at least tried.
“Yeah, it was looking good, it was a right choice to start on full wets but then we pitted off for inter too early because we ended up having to take another inter,” said Magnussen. “If had stretched that full wet to then go on to the inter than stay on it…on top of that we had a slow pit stop. It felt like we had some opportunity there but it didn’t work out.
“We just did what we felt right, we didn’t take any crazy gamble or anything, we just did what felt right then. It looked okay and I think we did the right thing to begin with but then we couldn’t back it up with the right decisions then after but yeah, we tried.”
Here’s Kevin Magnussen on Lap 1: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2024-canadian-grand-prix-magnussen-picks-off-six-cars-on-the-opening-lap.1801411599999626104
Here’s double Haas attack: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2024-canadian-grand-prix-haas-race-start-masterclass.1801486168715365783
Here’s Nico Hulkenberg saving himself from Yuki Tsunoda: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2024-canadian-grand-prix-hulkenberg-swerves-to-avoid-tsunoda-spin.1801429276582472507
Here’s how F1 Canadian GP panned out
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