Haas F1’s endurance woes continue, as Hulkenberg misses a critical start opportunity, leaving the team point-less.
No points for Haas F1 in Hungary today.
Nico Hulkenberg finished only 13th, attributing his poor result to a delay at the start.
“We got off to a bad start and had a very poor first lap, putting us in difficulty. When you lack track position—as was the case here—it’s very challenging. Being behind and in dirty air, you have to try something and take your chances, and an early stop was our answer to that. We then had two lengthy stints on hard tyres, and we knew it would be tough as we couldn’t make the tyres last long enough. Over one lap, we were quite competitive, but not so much on the longer stints, much like in Monaco.”
Kevin Magnussen finished 15th, not far behind the German. For the Dane, it was somewhat the opposite, but starting on soft tyres might have been too optimistic.
“We took a bit of a gamble with starting on soft tyres, as some others did, and I gained many positions on the first lap. I was overtaken by a few cars, and in the end, we just didn’t have the pace today to fight for points. I think we could have done better in qualifying, but given today’s pace, I don’t think we were in the running for points anyway. However, we take another lesson from this weekend and hope that Spa will be better.”
Ayao Komatsu, team principal, admits: “It was a rather difficult afternoon.”
“Kevin had a fairly decent first lap, while Nico lost positions in the first lap. From that point, we needed to get Nico back into the points and try something different, so we stopped early, but ultimately, we didn’t have the pace.”
“For Kevin, being 15th, we needed to try something different, and he did an excellent first lap to move up to 10th, but as he was on soft tyres, he still had to stop early. I don’t think it really worked, and when you see competitors executing a brilliant one-stop strategy and finishing in the points, we need to think about it.”
“Let’s move on to the next race at Spa, and with the level of support there, I hope it suits us better. We need to pull ourselves together and finish the first half of the season on a high note before the break.”
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Hulkenberg’s Missed Start Costs Haas Vital Points Hulkenberg’s Missed Start Costs Haas Vital Points
