Nico Hülkenberg has done it again. The German, who had never driven in Imola before despite his experience of over ten years in Formula 1, cracked the top 10 again in qualifying at the Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari. With tenth place for the race, the German secured his third Q3 entry in a row after China and Miami and his fourth in the 2024 Formula 1 season.
Imola updates encourage Hülkenberg
“I’m not 100 percent satisfied, only 97 percent,” Hülkenberg still had a bit of a struggle with himself and especially with his last lap of qualifying. “It’s a complicated, old track with a strange dynamic. If you start the lap well, you immediately gain one or two tenths and a positive dynamic develops. But if you lose time once, you’ll be chasing it the whole time and it’s hard to make up the time.”
Like pretty much every other team has too Haas brought updates to Imola this weekend. The US team promptly joined in with the music, and Hülkenberg’s teammate Kevin Magnussen was also able to set some promising lap times. Only Oscar Piastri prevented him from getting a better result, more on that below.
The updates also give Hülkenberg courage for the race. “It’s definitely positive. It’s only Saturday, so we’ll see how things go tomorrow,” Hülkenberg was initially cautious. “But I think that after today and what I felt and saw yesterday, we haven’t fallen behind. We can keep up with the second five teams, with this group. That’s what it looks like.”
Next qualifying defeat: Magnussen fails against Block-Piastri
Meanwhile, Kevin Magnussen can only dream of making it to Q3. The Dane has not managed to make it to the final qualifying segment once this season. This weekend, Magnussen will also start the Grand Prix significantly further back than his teammate with 18th place on the grid. Magnussen started the Imola qualifying quite promisingly.
“I was really happy with the car. Not yesterday in FP2, but we made a few comprehensive changes for FP3 and then I really liked it. I was ahead of Nico on my first and second laps,” explained Magnussen after qualifying.
But on his third and final attempt, the Haas driver ran into Oscar Piastri, who had just left the pits, in Turn 1. The Australian tried to get out of the way, but by then it was already too late for Magnussen, who was irritated by the McLaren on the ideal line, hit the curb on the inside unluckily and had to abort his decisive lap after just a few meters. Piastri was subsequently moved back three places more. More about it here:
“This is doubly bitter because it is already the fourth or fifth time this season that we have problems with traffic on the decisive lap,” said Magnussen, annoyed about the Piastri incident. The Haas driver recently had problems with traffic in the sprint qualifying in Miami.
Magnussen perplexed: Sounds like a bad excuse
Particularly bitter for Magnussen: Before his last, very short attempt, he was at eye level with Hülkenberg. But while the Dane had to abort his last lap, the German made a huge leap shortly before the end of Q1 and was briefly at the top of the time table. Only Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc drove faster. The Haas would have given much more in Magnussen’s hands.
“I don’t think we differed from the other teams when it came to the timing of leaving the pit lane. It’s probably just bad luck,” said Magnussen, annoyed about the bad luck in traffic. “It sounds like a bad excuse now. I just have to stay patient and hope it stops at some point because it’s having a big impact on my season now.”
“It seems like we’re running into the driver who drives differently than the others. And then I catch him in a bad spot on the track. That’s just been the case too often this year. If you put this problem in the Having had seven qualifying sessions four or five times, you start to wonder if there’s something I’m doing wrong.