Nico Hülkenberg narrowly missed the points in his very first Imola GP. After 63 mostly uneventful laps at the Autodromo Internazionale Enzo e Dino Ferrari, the German had to admit defeat to RB driver Yuki Tsunoda by a good seven seconds and crossed the finish line in P11.
“We just didn’t have enough pace, we were missing a bit,” said Hülkenberg after the race, annoyed about the missed points. “Of course the strategy and the early pit stop made life quite difficult for us, it was a very long second stint. It was difficult to find a good harmony and a good rhythm. Apart from that, it was a clean race.”
After a good start: Haas strategy to blame for Hülkenberg’s zero number?
However, the race in the Bologna region could hardly have started better for Hülkenberg. After another strong qualifying on Saturday, the future Audi driver started the race from tenth place and was able to work his way up two places in the first lap. Both Racing Bulls had to fall behind.
It turned into a monotonous race. As expected, overtaking maneuvers were in short supply. It quickly became clear that Hülkenberg would not be able to keep up with Hamilton’s pace in seventh place. A DRS train was created behind the German who played the train driver.
Hülkenberg was sure that without Tsunoda’s undercut he would have been able to keep the Japanese behind him for the rest of the race. “He was faster, but here you need a big speed delta to overtake someone. We had good speed on the straights this weekend, that would have kept us in front,” explained Hülkenberg.
Two other drivers from the initial DRS train proved that things could have been different: Lance Stroll and Sergio Perez. Both stayed out with their starting tires for significantly longer and only drove into the pits on lap 38. The strategy paid off. Hülkenberg didn’t have the slightest chance against either of them with significantly older tires.
“We knew that we couldn’t keep the Red Bull behind us and Lance also had a very good pace with the other strategy in the end,” admitted Hülkenberg. Nevertheless, he did not want to describe his team’s strategy as wrong. “It’s always difficult to say. With the medium tires I had a good start and caught both Racing Bulls straight away,” said the German. “With the hard tires I would have had a worse start. And we don’t know whether I would have lost the position. We have to analyze that.”
Haas is establishing itself in the F1 midfield
Even though the race weekend for Haas in Imola was not crowned with points, the race in Emilia-Romagna gave the US team hope. Haas was able to pull away from the back of the field both in the race and in the championship table and appears to be forming a kind of two-team midfield together with the Racing Bulls. The Red Bull sister team is in sixth place with 19 points, with Haas following behind with seven points. The fact that Haas has not fallen behind despite updates from the competition is also demonstrated by the performance of Kevin Magnussen, who finished the race in 18th place directly behind Hülkenberg.
“It is now confirmed that we can keep up with the midfield,” Hülkenberg also recognized after the race. “That’s great when you compare it to last year. But you always quickly get used to these nice things and quickly want to fight for more than just the points. We have to keep pushing.