Nico Hulkenberg finished Friday’s practice session at Silverstone in seventh place. After he and Haas teammate Kevin Magnussen had occupied the last two places in the first practice session, at least the German Formula 1 driver made significant progress in the afternoon.
“The car worked a little better on soft and we were able to find a lot of lap times. And on one lap the pace seemed to be okay again. The long runs actually felt okay today. At least that’s my feeling,” reports Hülkenberg afterwards FT2.
Because not only seventh place in the time list was a good result for Haas, team boss Günther Steiner also explains: “The long run didn’t look so bad. But of course the long run only lasted 15 laps and we have to use these tires [im Rennen] do more than 15 laps.”
And that, according to Hülkenberg, is exactly the problem. “In FT2 you mostly drive alone, I didn’t have any cars [vor mir] and no ‘dirty air’. But that’s our big problem. So it’s not the real picture like on Sunday. So I’m cautious about it,” he said.
Haas experiments in FT1 do not work
Because the VF-23 burns the tires in traffic much faster than any other Formula 1 car this year, which is why Haas doesn’t give much attention to Friday’s impressions. “But at least I personally had a better feeling than on some other Fridays in the past,” said Hulkenberg.
And Steiner also emphasizes with cautious optimism that things are “going in the right direction”. But why did Hülkenberg and Magnussen do so poorly in the first training session? “We tried a few things in FT1. [Wir hatten] new parts on the car and did some experimenting,” reveals the German.
They tried to “get more performance” out of the package. “But that didn’t work,” admits Hülkenberg, who by the way didn’t even have the new parts on the car on Friday, “because we wanted to compare the cars,” he explains.
Magnussen converts to Hülkenberg set-up
“Kevin had them and I’ll have them fitted tonight,” he announces, explaining, “After FT1 we did a bit of a reset and went back to a more conventional car that we’re familiar with. That made things seem a bit unified for FT2 to be more normal windows.”
While that went up for him, Magnussen was only 18th in the afternoon too. “Kevin struggled a bit but we’re switching his set-up to Nico’s at his request and hopefully he can do it in FT3 and in the keep up with Nico in qualifying,” said Steiner.
But it won’t be easy for Haas at the weekend, because Hülkenberg emphasizes: “There are also some other fast cars out there. Unfortunately, Williams seems to have found a lot of pace.” Alexander Albon and Logan Sargeant surprisingly finished third and fifth.
“She looks real. Unfortunately, yes,” says Hulkenberg about the Williams pace on Friday. That’s not the only reason why it won’t be a sure-fire success for the German to make it into Q3 for the fourth time in a row after Barcelona, Montreal and Spielberg.