Hulkenberg frustrated: 'It was both the Red Bulls!'

F1 News

nico hulkenberg balks at red bull max verstappen
21 October 2023 at 16:00
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  • Ludo van Denderen

Haas' long-awaited updates have yet to make much of a difference in terms of results. During qualifying, although Kevin Magnussen got into Q2, he eventually finished in place 14. Teammate Nico Hulkenberg, in the heavily updated VF-23, was even stranded in Q1. The German will start Sunday's US Grand Prix in 16th place.

"“It was an unfortunate second run in qualifying," Hulkenberg observed afterwards. "it was the second lap that mattered with the track evolution that we had today, but we got disturbed. We had both Red Bulls interfering with the lap in awkward places which made me lose quite a bit of time and that made the difference."

Hulkenberg evaluates Haas F1's updates

With more time on track, the Haas men could have had a better idea of how the updates were doing. At the moment, that is difficult. "It’s the first day that we’ve run the new updates and after only one hour of practice and qualifying, we need to go through it and understand it more. This morning I wasn’t happy at all with the car, but we made some good set-up changes and it felt much better. I think we could’ve gone a long way today, so it’s very frustrating," the German once again reflected on incidents with Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez.

Team boss Guenther Steiner was also a bit disappointed. He felt a place in Q2 would have been in it for both cars and reiterated Hulkenberg's words: the German was hampered. However, Steiner did not suspect that the Haas is currently majorly improved that a place in Q3 would have been realistic for Hulkenberg.