Nico Hulkenberg had a clean run in F1 British GP to register more points, as Kevin Magnussen’s soft tyres degraded more to leave him outside the Top 10.
Even though he lost out to Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc at the start of F1 British GP, Haas’ Hulkenberg had the last laugh by finishing sixth in the order just behind the Top 5 runners from the Top 4 teams minus George Russell, Sergio Perez and the Monegasque.
The strategy calls for Perez and Leclerc undone their cause, but Hulkenberg had a handsome finish where he managed to outshine both the Aston Martin cars, even though there was some scare in the last stint when the soft tyres started degrading.
It ended up being two sixth places finishes in a row for Hulkenberg which has brought Haas closer to Visa Cash App RB in the fight for sixth, with just the four points separating the two. “Good, good, happy, obviously nice rewarding feeling to get eight points again, P6 two times in a row,” he said. “Unexpected, but deserved.
“We worked for it. We stayed clean, no mistakes, good strategy. So, very good. The best of all, though the performance that we’ve had, the update really, did something to the car. And I genuinely think we’re in the fight for fifth fastest team now with sometimes Aston, sometimes Alpine, sometimes some others maybe.
“But we’re there. We have been pretty consistent this season. We can hang on to that. As for the race, I have to admit it’s pretty uncomfortable turning into Copse with 300 with rain on your visor, and not knowing, you know, am I going to be in the wall? Or am I going to make the corner? Just don’t know, with slicks and this grip level, it is very challenging.
“That’s why, focus wise and mental this race was pretty tough and demanding. Like you say, we got the timing very well. Both stops and also the reward and the result,” summed up Hulkenberg, who was slightly surprised with yellow flags but not a lot considering how the car is and how it behaves in such conditions.
“Yes, but we had that, if you remember last year Monaco, when we were on slicks, and it was raining – also nothing happened,” said Hulkenberg. “It goes back to these cars, sometimes they have too much downforce. Obviously the downforce is kind of the saver and is your friend in that moment. But still it’s a bit surprising or astonishing.”
The German noted that Haas put in a bit more downforce in the car to suit the conditions and it seemingly helped them. Overall, he seems to be in a good place with the car and is managing to extract as much from the car. “It was a stretch, the last few laps I was pushing like hell,” said Hulkenberg.
“Obviously it was kind of wet in qualifying and the forecast for the race was also 60%, so we put a bit more downforce on the car. But that made us very vulnerable and slow on the straights and not ideal but also the soft yeah after 10 laps it sort of starting to deg away and yeah, I had to be very clean. I mean, Lance was pushing on from behind on his medium, which obviously has much better deg.
“I was very happy that I managed to bring it home. I don’t know [about] most comfortable ever, but I feel very comfortable, happy in my skin, with the team, environment, everything. You can see that, it just clicked and a good happy connection. And I just look forward to the rest of the season with Haas, and want to finish on the strong, and hopefully we can keep this up.”
While the German made merry, teammate Magnussen provided some action coming through from 17th. He made good progress to be at the end of the Top 10 and had a chance to go for it until the last stint on the soft tyres.
It degraded more than he anticipated which allowed Williams’ Logan Sargeant to sneak through him at the end too. “We started P17 and it was always going to be a difficult race but we made really good progress in the first stint, overtaking people on track, looking really good,” he said.
“When the rain came, everyone still on dry, we made the right call to stay out there and I think the pace actually was really strong in those conditions. We went onto the intermediate and I was saving the tyre because I was hearing that more rain would come and the track was pretty dry, so I was saving the tyre but the rain really never came.
“And then we pit one lap too early onto the soft and we were pretty slow on that stint. I don’t know, good first 2/3rd of a race, then just grained on the soft and yeah, didn’t have a good one after,” summed up Magnussen.
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