Having certified a promising twelfth at Suzuka, Hulkenberg misplaced out after the purple flag as his anti-stall system kicked in throughout 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 solution to an Eleventh-place end, fewer than six seconds off AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda in tenth.
Hulkenberg admitted that the outcome was ‘nearly as good as it may well get’ following his failed second launch: “I am truthfully a bit shocked that I managed to come back again to the place I did. I believe 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 might have fought Yuki or crushed 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 every other driver from the underside 5 groups – besides Logan Sargeant, who pitted for tender tyres late within the race.
“What I take from immediately is we now have a package deal that we will battle 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 because the season-opener in Bahrain.
“I used to be having fairly some complications earlier than the race, I did not count on it that nice. But it surely turned out significantly better. So you already know, I take that one fortunately and I am wanting ahead to extra good races.”
Nico Hulkenberg, Haas F1 Staff
Picture by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Photographs
Whereas Hulkenberg praised a “a lot stronger” aerodynamic platform permitting the automobile to be “rather more constant”, staff 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 possibly can see, high-speed downforce, we’ve not obtained sufficient,” the Japanese mentioned. “So that is what we have to enhance. After which sure traits on the entrance axle of the automobile we have to enhance.”
But, Komatsu was nonetheless eager to level out the positives: “Yesterday, I used to be watching making an attempt to get only one automobile into Q2. And for Nico to ship P12, that was superb. However then it nonetheless felt [that] immediately it’ll be actually powerful even to remain on that place. However we went backwards [at the second start] and we managed to recuperate that effectively.
“Suzuka, by way of our strengths and weak point, this circuit actually exposes the weak point of our automobile. So, if we will try this at this circuit, it is constructive. After which, we try to deliver the brand new components aggressively to the longer term races. So that ought to add efficiency to the automobile, that ought to make the entire thing higher. However, you already know, we’ll see.”
