For Nico Hülkenberg, his comeback race was “more or less over from lap one”. However, the Formula 1 returnee wants to learn a lot from the season opener in Bahrain for the remainder of the season. The "hard as a board" cars put the 35-year-old, however, extremely.
Haas driver Nico Hülkenberg was physically challenged during his Formula 1 comeback at the opening Grand Prix in Bahrain. "I feel okay, but I can tell I drove a Grand Prix," said the 35-year-old after 57 laps in Sakhir, referring in particular to the effects of bouncing on the driver. At high speeds on long straights, the cars jump at different rates. "The cars are pretty rock solid, you get brutally beaten up. That's what I notice the most," said Hulkenberg, who finished 15th.
The Haas driver, who was given a regular cockpit again after three years, immediately collided with Alpine driver Esteban Ocon and damaged his front wing. "It was a difficult race, actually it was more or less over from the first lap," said Hulkenberg after his 182nd Grand Prix start. "In the end we went for the Golden Pineapple, not close to the points. I used the race to experiment a bit."
According to Hülkenberg's assessment, the tires on the Haas are too worn. The US team has to work on that. "I have to understand and analyze that in detail now. The laps and kilometers that I've done are now simply valuable experience that will sink in over the next week or two," said Hulkenberg, who also had one because of crossing the track barrier several times received a time penalty.
"Things didn't go as we wanted in the race, but we learned a lot and now we know that we have roughly the same racing speed as everyone else," summarized Haas team boss Günther Steiner. Hülkenberg's teammate Kevin Magnussen finished 13th despite a botched tire strategy.
