The Spielberg weekend actually went quite well for Nico Hulkenberg. On Friday he finished eighth in qualifying, on Saturday he even finished fourth in the shootout, and in sixth place in the sprint he took three important points for the world championship.
But of all things, the main race on Sunday ended with a failure. After twelve rounds, the Haas VF-23 gave up the ghost. When asked if there had been a warning, Hulkenberg replies to “Sky”: “No, zero.”
“Up to curve 3 it suddenly went ‘bang’. I think something hydraulic because the gearbox didn’t work anymore. The power steering went away,” said Hulkenberg, who rolled out and complained about a loss of power.
The team later explained that it was a problem with the Ferrari power unit. However, it would probably not have been enough to score points even without the defect on Sunday, because Hülkenberg once again had to struggle with tires that deteriorated too quickly.
Hulkenberg sees “long-term issue”
When asked about Haas’ general problems in the races, he explains: “I think that happened yesterday and unfortunately again today. I think in the first stint on the medium you could see that we are under direct pressure from the cars behind us.”
The problem is “that we still put more strain on the tires,” explains Hulkenberg, who came to the pit stop on lap eleven – and retired shortly thereafter. “We’re just in a vicious circle and there’s currently no exemption,” he admits.
“I think that’s a long-term issue that we have to solve through development, through parts and then car characteristics, especially on the aerodynamic side. But that’s a big task,” says the German.
The failure is therefore doubly bitter, “and will make things more difficult in the future because we have less information,” explains Hulkenberg, adding: “The positives are the two very good qualifying sessions this weekend and, of course, a very good sprint.”
“Luckily we scored a few points yesterday when we had the opportunity,” explains team boss Günther Steiner, for whom Sunday was also “a very disappointing day”. He also admits that you were “not fast enough” in the dry.
Magnussen complains about “very bad pace”
Because not only Hülkenberg remained without points on Sunday, teammate Kevin Magnussen saw the checkered flag after all, but did not collect any points as 19th and thus effectively last. “I had a very bad pace,” reports the Dane.
Magnussen followed the field from the pit lane, but after an incident with Nyck de Vries his race was over. “I drove into the gravel trap at high speed when de Vries pushed me out at turn 6,” he reports.
“I don’t know if the underbody was damaged, we have to check that. But today we didn’t have a chance,” admits Magnussen and explains: “We will continue to work on improving as quickly as possible.”
After all, teammate Hülkenberg is looking forward to the next race in Spielberg. “It’s a great track. It’s very good for me, it’s fast and fluid. I always have good memories of Silverstone. I have a lot of fun there,” reveals the German.
And it can’t actually go much worse for Haas there than on Sunday in Spielberg…