There was a short window throughout qualifying for the Bahrain Grand Prix on Saturday the place it appeared like Haas, and driver Nico Hülkenberg, may need one thing up their sleeves for the sphere. Hülkenberg made his manner into the third and remaining qualifying session and appeared to qualify eighth, which might have put him in place to problem for factors on Sunday.
But that window shortly closed.
Hülkenberg’s time was nullified for exceeding observe limits in Turn 4, dropping him to tenth on the grid for Sunday’s race. And with teammate Kevin Magnussen beginning Sunday in seventeenth, Hülkenberg appeared the crew’s finest likelihood to depart Bahrain with some factors banked. But these hopes had been dashed early on Sunday, as Hülkenberg got here into contact with Esteban Ocon early within the race, a collision which triggered some harm to the entrance wing of Hülkenberg’s VF-23.
That shortly dropped Hülkenberg from tenth on the grid to Fifteenth. Instead of combating for factors, Hülkenberg and Haas out of the blue had been combating to outlive.
When all was stated and finished, it was Magnussen who crossed the road first, ending Thirteenth. Hülkenberg got here throughout the road moments later for a Fifteenth-place end.
“It was a tricky race – especially the first half. I had contact with someone on lap one which I didn’t really notice so that was a bit frustrating,” admitted Hülkenberg after the race in an announcement given to the media, together with SB Nation. “I had quite a lot missing from the front wing and lost a lot of load and grip with that, and that made the first half of the race very tough. We tried to hang in there, but I was going through my tires like a hot knife through butter, so we decided there was no point in continuing like that and we pitted for a new front wing.”
Magnussen, who labored his manner up a bit within the area, was a bit extra optimistic after his Thirteenth-place end. “I was pleasantly surprised with our race pace. We started P17 but still made up a few positions and it felt like the pace was alright in terms of where we came from,” stated Magnussen after the race. “I think we were struggling a lot in testing and on Friday with tire wear and in the race it seemed like we made a step, which is positive. It wasn’t the weekend we dreamed of, but we learned a lot.”
Team Principal Guenther Steiner admitted that Sunday’s end was not what the crew anticipated, and conceded that issues may have been finished in a different way. “The result wasn’t what we expected – Nico didn’t have a great start losing a front wing endplate and Kevin was, in hindsight, on the wrong tire at the start.”
Magnussen was the one driver on the sphere to go for laborious tyres to begin, with the remainder of the sphere rolling out on the softs. Like his teammate, who slid again within the area after his contact with Ocon, Magnussen fell all the best way again to twentieth as the remainder of the sphere pulled away on the softer compound.
However, each Magnussen — as famous above — and Steiner discovered a silver lining: THe improved race tempo from the VF-23. Heading into Sunday, that was one of many largest questions going through Haas. While the outcomes from Bahrain weren’t what the crew hoped for, the better-than-expected tempo has Steiner and the crew eager for the long run.
“I think race pace was better than we expected and that’s what we take away from here – there is good potential in the car. We qualified in the top 10 and maybe could even have been in the top eight if everything went perfectly,” stated Steiner after the race. “In the race it didn’t go our way, but we learned a lot and we now know that we’re in the ballpark on race pace like everybody else. We go to Jeddah well prepared, and we’ll see what we can do there – I think points are possible.”