Haas gambled heavily with Nico Hülkenberg in the Formula 1 race in Azerbaijan, but ultimately lost his entire commitment: because there was no second safety car phase, the German was passed back in the final laps of the race and decided the fourth Grand Prix of the year only in 17th place among 18 drivers.
Hulkenberg’s first conclusion on “ORF”: “Unfortunately, our plan didn’t work out today.”
Because after the sprint race on Saturday, in which Hülkenberg’s medium tires were suddenly over, Haas had chosen a risky strategy for Hülkenberg: He should drive a very long first stint on hard tires and finally benefit from a safety car phase to protect his to make a mandatory stop. However, there was no late yellow phase in the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
High speed on hard tires takes its toll
Hülkenberg therefore speaks of a “long race” and says: “I was behind Ocon the whole time, behind me Norris. I was in the sandwich. It was the highest focus because I was upper edge of the lower lip the whole race. I’m actually full driven, qualifying laps all the time.”
This extreme pace took its toll. “In the end, unfortunately, my tires gave out in the last ten laps,” says Hulkenberg. “The car didn’t keep up. The pace for 40 laps was a bit too high for us.”
From lap 45 it went backwards for Hulkenberg. First McLaren driver Norris passed him, then the following drivers pushed him away. And Hulkenberg could not put up any resistance on very used hard tires.
“Unfortunately, the safety car didn’t come when we needed it in the end,” he explains, adding: “But you can’t base your race on luck.”
Why Haas completely rebuilt the car
The latter, however, almost became a necessity after the sprint race on Saturday because Haas had “completely rebuilt” his car to prevent renewed “tyre seizure” in the Grand Prix.
“The sprint yesterday was terrible,” says Hulkenberg on “Sky England”. “It only went backwards.”
His team therefore opted for a “rather conventional” set-up, “just like we drove in Melbourne and Jeddah,” says Hulkenberg. His team boss Günther Steiner states that the set-up was taken over from teammate Kevin Magnussen.
Hülkenberg got along well with that in the Grand Prix: “Today the car was much more the old car that I know. It was better. But I think it wasn’t our parade track this weekend. We struggled one way or another, weren’t as strong as usual. Even with a perfect race, it would have been difficult to score points.”
Too little time for Haas setup experiment
The sprint format with only one free practice session didn’t help because Haas “tried something different” on Friday when setting up the VF-23 and only realized in the sprint race on Saturday “that it didn’t fit,” as Hülkenberg describes it . So a conversion including a pit lane start into the race on Sunday only seemed logical.
Or would a start from the starting grid also have been conceivable? Hülkenberg waves it off: “We looked at all facets. But if you go into the race and know you have the wrong set-up, then 51 painful laps are waiting for you.”
“That’s why it was obvious for me to convert the car and drive out of the pit lane. Because it could have been a crazy race and then we would have had a chance.”
Hülkenberg’s tactics work – initially
At first, the Haas tactics with the first stint on Hard proved to be a golden grip for Hülkenberg: After the early safety car phase, he drove in tenth place and held his position until the final phase, when the tires finally gave up.
Until then, he had kept up well with Alpine man Esteban Ocon in front of him, who was using the same strategy. “On the one hand, he pulled me around the track. That was quite useful. On the other hand, that’s it [Folgen] bad in some corners [für die Reifen]”, says Hulkenberg.
“The bottom line is that we were similar fast. But the 30 laps or so that I spent behind him felt like a lifetime. I ruined the tires a little bit and that’s why they died in the end.”
Haas and Hulkenberg: Things should be better in Miami
Hulkenberg accepts this bankruptcy. His motto: “Wipe your mouth, press the reset button and in a few days we’ll be back in Miami. We’re doing better there.”
Team boss Steiner is also convinced of this: “I think we have to book this weekend as a small setback and do better again in Miami. The track there may suit our car a little better because it’s a circuit for medium downforce. “
“All things considered,” says Steiner, “was the performance of the vehicle [in Baku] but good. We were able to match the pace of Alpine and McLaren.”
But that was of no use in the end, neither for Hülkenberg nor for his Haas teammate Magnussen, who also didn’t score in Azerbaijan: The Dane finished 13th after 51 race laps.