Nico Hulkenberg: Tough season ahead

Nico Hulkenberg says about the tests on the one hand that the new Haas car clearly performs better than last year, on the other hand he predicts that the season will be difficult anyway.

Nico Hulkenberg: “The car makes a good impression and I am of course very happy that we are starting a new season. Yesterday we worked well, did a lot of laps, but this morning the session was interrupted a little earlier due to a problem on the track and in that situation I lost some time.

But I would say that so far everything is going well, I feel comfortable behind the wheel and I think we have taken a step forward compared to 12 months ago. But the real tests await us when we return to this track in a week’s time – then we’ll see what positions we take.

I think the biggest problems last year were related to aerodynamics, but our new car even looks different if you look at it closely. In my opinion, the team has managed to solve many problems, and when driving I feel the difference in the car’s behavior.

But obviously, as always, it is difficult to compare ourselves with our opponents at this stage because we don’t know what exactly they are doing. We just have to work as efficiently as possible and try to optimize the car’s behavior in all areas – this is the most important thing now.

Yesterday and today we mainly focused on running long sets of laps with a high fuel load, as this was our biggest weakness last year. We understand that we will achieve the most noticeable improvements if we can address this problem. In the evening, together with the engineers, we will think about how to create a program for the last day of testing – perhaps we will try to make it more combined, but this is not yet a fact.

We don’t know exactly to what extent we have managed to solve the problems that hindered us last year, and in any case we have a difficult season ahead of us. But we have a fighting spirit, so we will see what we can achieve.”

Nico was also asked whether he had to adapt in some way to the changes that have occurred within the team, as after the resignation of Gunter Steiner it was led by Ayo Komatsu, who was previously Haas F1’s chief racing engineer .

“Honestly, there is no specific need to adapt to anything,” the German racer replied. – It is clear that he is a different leader, he has his own management style and he has already started to change some things. He is an engineer, he has a different professional background, his career has been different and he is a very knowledgeable specialist. Engineers will not be able to implement it, because he himself knows very well how everything works! (laughs)

Of course, I already worked with him as a team last year, and now that he is playing in a different role, this collaboration will continue. It seems to me that there is a good atmosphere in the team, a positive attitude, because everyone wants to achieve results and I hope that we can perform well in the first phase of the season.”