Haas team boss Günther Steiner has explained why Kevin Magnussen got fresh tires at the end of the Formula 1 race in Singapore, but Nico Hülkenberg did not.
When the virtual safety car was deployed on lap 44 at the Singapore Grand Prix last weekend, Nico Hülkenberg was in tenth place and thus in the points. However, the German ultimately only finished the race in 13th place.
The opposite was the case with teammate Kevin Magnussen: He was only in 14th place ahead of the VSC, but in tenth place he still picked up a point. Explanation: Haas brought Magnussen into the pits behind the VSC to give him fresh tires for the final phase.
Hülkenberg, on the other hand, didn’t get new tires and ended up finishing the race behind his teammate. “Of course he wasn’t happy about it, but neither were we,” reveals team boss Günther Steiner, who now explains how the decision came about.
Hülkenberg was in the fight with Liam Lawson in front of him and Guanyu Zhou behind him when the virtual safety car was deployed. There was therefore a “discussion” as to whether the German should be brought into the pits again or not.
“At some moments it looked as if Zhou would come into the pits. Then we would have come into the pits too,” explains Steiner. Because the risk of just bringing Hülkenberg into the pits and thus giving up position on the track was too great.
Because overtaking is traditionally difficult in Singapore, the decision was made to hold on to tenth place on the track. The problem: “We didn’t expect that [Reifen-]degradation is so high or that the tire will no longer come back,” says Steiner.
Steiner reminds: The strategy worked for others
Because after the race was reopened, both Hülkenberg and Zhou quickly fell behind. Steiner explains that with today’s knowledge, the decision not to bring Hülkenberg into the pits would of course have been made differently “in retrospect.”
The team boss also emphasizes that the problems were not foreseeable at the time because: “Sainz and Norris [vorne] stayed [beim VSC] also out there and had a good pace, while Lawson, us and Zhou just went down.”
With Magnussen, on the other hand, there was nothing to lose because the Dane was outside the points anyway. He finally made a comeback on the soft tires, while Hülkenberg continues to wait for his first points in a main race since Australia at the beginning of April.
The German is making a new attempt this weekend in Suzuka. “The route is fun,” he says, explaining that it is one of his favorites. It’s “a cool place,” said Hülkenberg, who, however, already revealed in Singapore that things are likely to be difficult for Haas in terms of sport.
“[Die Strecke dort ist] fast, fluid. [Das ist] not the recipe for our car. “So I’m preparing for a difficult weekend,” said Hülkenberg a few days ago. It would be all the more important to at least get the strategy right this time.