Nico Hulkenberg: The trend continues

Nico Hülkenberg acknowledged that the Haas F1 team is still struggling with the lack of speed and the increased rubber wear that becomes visible during the race.

Nico Hulkenberg: “In Canada, after a successful Saturday on Sunday, everything went as it happened. We had a lot of bad luck because the safety car came out at the wrong time and that cost me a lot personally.

Absolutely, the old trend continues: on Sunday we have problems with pace, we are unable to work effectively with rubber and control the degree of its degradation – we understand all this and try to find a solution. In the meantime, everything remains as it was: we can perform well in qualifying, but in the race we are starting to struggle.

It is clear that in qualifying you always drive on relatively fresh rubber, it does not have time to wear out – within 60 or 90 seconds the tires withstand all loads and provide good grip. But when it comes to a segment consisting of 30-40 circles, then, of course, this is a completely different story.

This is partly due to the characteristics of our car and manifests itself in situations where we are in traffic, behind other cars – this is where the problems begin. Of course, while we’re trying to figure it out, it’s still hard to predict anything. It will be a tough weekend with a busy schedule ahead as there is a sprint race on Saturday, but let’s hope the weather cooperates a bit.

I think the coming weeks and months will show how effectively we managed to solve the problems and what progress we made. But there are still many challenges ahead.”

Nico Hülkenberg acknowledged that the Haas F1 team is still struggling with the lack of speed and the increased rubber wear that becomes visible during the race.

Nico Hulkenberg: “In Canada, after a successful Saturday on Sunday, everything went as it happened. We had a lot of bad luck because the safety car came out at the wrong time and that cost me a lot personally.

Absolutely, the old trend continues: on Sunday we have problems with pace, we are unable to work effectively with rubber and control the degree of its degradation – we understand all this and try to find a solution. In the meantime, everything remains as it was: we can perform well in qualifying, but in the race we are starting to struggle.

It is clear that in qualifying you always drive on relatively fresh rubber, it does not have time to wear out – within 60 or 90 seconds the tires withstand all loads and provide good grip. But when it comes to a segment consisting of 30-40 circles, then, of course, this is a completely different story.

This is partly due to the characteristics of our car and manifests itself in situations where we are in traffic, behind other cars – this is where the problems begin. Of course, while we’re trying to figure it out, it’s still hard to predict anything. It will be a tough weekend with a busy schedule ahead as there is a sprint race on Saturday, but let’s hope the weather cooperates a bit.

I think the coming weeks and months will show how effectively we managed to solve the problems and what progress we made. But there are still many challenges ahead.”