Haas’ bold tactic on wet tires didn’t work out in Canada, but Nico Hülkenberg says the team lost the points on Saturday
Haas took a bold approach and was the only team to opt for rain tires at the start of the Formula 1 race in Canada – with both drivers. Initially, the gamble seemed to work when Kevin Magnussen worked his way up to fourth place, but after switching to intermediates, everything was basically the same as before
In the end, there were no points for Haas and only eleventh and twelfth positions. “For the first ten laps, it obviously looked like it was the right decision with the full wets. That worked well,” Nico Hülkenberg, who was a few positions behind Magnussen due to a poor qualifying session, told Sky.
“But when it dried out, we lost everything we had gained,” said the German. Magnussen returned to the track in 13th place after his change, while Hülkenberg was only 19th – easy come, easy go.
Magnussen does not believe that Haas took a big risk: “We simply did what we thought was right. We didn’t do anything crazy, we did what we thought was right in the conditions,” said the Dane.
“And it looked okay, so we did the right thing at the beginning. But then we just didn’t back it up with the right decisions afterwards.”
Magnussen switched to intermediates after just seven laps – too early, in his opinion. “Because we then had to take another intermediate. We could have extended it on the full-wet, then taken the intermediate and stayed on that. But then we also had the very slow pit stop.”
He says: “I feel like we had an opportunity there, but we didn’t get anything out of it. “
Hülkenberg: Points given away on Saturday
Hülkenberg, on the other hand, doesn’t necessarily think the race was a missed opportunity. “The missed opportunity was yesterday,” he says, referring to qualifying. “Because if we qualify better, then we will definitely finish in the points today,” he is convinced.
However, “something was wrong” with his car this weekend. But he can’t say what it is. “Because we weren’t really able to drive on Friday, we couldn’t really find out what it was,” said Hülkenberg.
“But also on Saturday morning after practice, the aero guys saw that something wasn’t quite right with my underbody and wing. As a result, we changed the rear wing for qualifying,” he explains.
“But the car and the front axle didn’t feel normal and I was fighting a bit with blunt weapons today. “
Scary moment with Tsunoda
In general, however, he was very satisfied with his own performance and his race: “I made the best of it,” he emphasized. “I didn’t make any mistakes, no big mistakes or excursions off the track. There wasn’t much more to it.”
Nevertheless, there were some hairy moments for him too. For example, his drift in turn 2 on a wet track: “Yeah, man, that was something,” he laughs. “There were a few moments: Did I get it? No. Have I got it? No.” Hülkenberg was about to reach for the clutch, but then managed to catch it.
And then there was the scene with Yuki Tsunoda shortly before the end, when he only just managed to avoid the spinning RB. “It’s still a bit damp on the left and right. I kind of just reacted,” he explains. “I think it was more luck than anything else. That was a hairy moment. “
