Nico Hulkenberg says his ninth place in Singapore for the Haas Formula 1 team was “redemption” after his mistake late in the previous race in Azerbaijan.
In Baku Hulkenberg got up to ninth when he passed the Carlos Sainz/Sergio Perez accident scene.
He was expecting an immediate safety car or VSC period, but the track briefly went green again, and both Lewis Hamilton and his own team mate Oliver Bearman snuck past, demoting him back to 11th.
In Singapore Hulkenberg made amends by qualifying sixth and finishing ninth, having held off Perez for many laps.
While it was inevitable that the quicker Ferraris would pass him his big disappointment was that he was jumped for eighth at the pitstops by Fernando Alonso.
However the team’s strategic focus was on outscoring immediate championship rivals RB and Williams, which it succeeded in doing.
Haas now lies just three points behind RB in the battle for sixth place.
“Happy to get points, that’s what matters, obviously,” said Hulkenberg. “From that point of view, good. A few things I think to look into and review in terms of strategy.
“But otherwise a clean race, obviously not very eventful, but quite stressful, keeping the Red Bull at bay for the whole second stint.
“It was tough to bring it home with the tyres and everything, but yeah, we managed. Happy, and a bit of redemption from last week.”
Hulkenberg played down the fact that he’d beaten Perez’s Red Bull.
“I think we’ve been there thereabouts many times this season,” he said. “It’s not the first time we pulled it off.
“I think obviously, we put ourselves in a really good position already yesterday with quali. That was also one of the key points.
“I had a good start and a clean race. So I don’t care if it’s a Red Bull or who it is, it’s important that we get those points.”
He added: “A very intense second stint. I had to stay faultless and super clean and clinical, like everyone. But yeah, it was tough feeling heat from him and catching Fernando, then being in his dirty air.
“It’s tough to overtake obviously with these cars, when you get close now, and the braking zones are so small we brake so late, very difficult to overtake here. But yeah, difficult second stint under a lot of pressure from him [Perez]. Not that we were racing, but I just had to stay clean.
“It wasn’t easy, it was very challenging and tough. So it makes it a bit sweeter that we managed to succeed.”
Hulkenberg remains confident that Haas can beat RB to sixth place.
“I think everyone in the team firmly believes that we can challenge and fight them,” he said. “We scored a point last weekend [with Bearman]. We should have scored more, and now six races to go, it’s all to play for.
“Obviously, they’re not going to hand it to us. They’ll try to fight back, but it’s just a race till the end. But I think we have good momentum. Now there’s a bit of a break, but the next triple header, I really look forward to probably my favourite time of the season.
“We’re competitive in the races, and in Austin, we actually get further upgrades. So that’s encouraging, but I think some good circuits coming for us and our package, and I look forward to hopefully a couple more points.”
