Having certified a promising twelfth at Suzuka, Hulkenberg misplaced out after the pink flag as his anti-stall system kicked in through the second begin. This dropped him to seventeenth place earlier than he had the primary pitstop of the race, as early as lap 5.
Nonetheless, the German subsequently had two robust stints on exhausting tyres. He overtook 5 drivers on the observe, together with Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll within the final lap, on his method to an Eleventh-place end, fewer than six seconds off AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda in tenth.
Hulkenberg admitted that the outcome was ‘pretty much as good as it might probably get’ following his failed second launch: “I am actually a bit shocked that I managed to come back again to the place I did. I feel it is half a miracle, to be trustworthy. It confirmed that we had good tempo.
“It is clearly a pity as a result of in all probability we may have fought Yuki or overwhelmed Yuki to 1 level, that was up for grabs – however Hamilton is 50 seconds up the highway, in order that’s clearly a bit out of attain.”
Hulkenberg is enthused concerning the VF-24’s tempo after setting the Eleventh quickest lap, 9 tenths sooner than another driver from the underside 5 groups – besides Logan Sargeant, who pitted for smooth tyres late within the race.
“What I take from as we speak is we have now a bundle that we are able to struggle the opposite midfield groups with and, to be trustworthy, it felt even higher than what I anticipated,” Hulkenberg added, regardless of failing to attain for the primary time for the reason that season-opener in Bahrain.
“I used to be having fairly some complications earlier than the race, I did not count on it that nice. However it turned out a lot better. So you already know, I take that one fortunately and I am wanting ahead to extra good races.”
Nico Hulkenberg, Haas F1 Group
Picture by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Photographs
Whereas Hulkenberg praised a “a lot stronger” aerodynamic platform permitting the automotive to be “way more constant”, group boss Ayao Komatsu had a extra perfectionist outlook following the race, as Haas stays a strong seventh within the constructors’ championship regardless of a point-less outing.
“Finally, as you’ll be able to see, high-speed downforce, we’ve not bought sufficient,” the Japanese mentioned. “So that is what we have to enhance. After which sure traits on the entrance axle of the automotive we have to enhance.”
But, Komatsu was nonetheless eager to level out the positives: “Yesterday, I used to be watching attempting to get only one automotive into Q2. And for Nico to ship P12, that was wonderful. However then it nonetheless felt [that] as we speak it will be actually robust even to remain on that place. However we went backwards [at the second start] and we managed to recuperate that properly.
“Suzuka, by way of our strengths and weak point, this circuit actually exposes the weak point of our automotive. So, if we are able to do this at this circuit, it is constructive. After which, we try to carry the brand new elements aggressively to the long run races. So that ought to add efficiency to the automotive, that ought to make the entire thing higher. However, you already know, we’ll see.”
