Nico Hulkenberg admits that he was “really on the edge” in his efforts to stay ahead of Sergio Perez in the Austrian GP. The Haas driver was in sixth place in front of Perez and on fading tyres when he ran wide at the final corner at the start of the last lap.
That gave Perez the momentum to briefly get by at Turn 3, but Hulkenberg fought back and repassed at Turn 4 and stayed ahead to the flag.
“I didn’t expect to be able to keep Checo behind for that long,” he admitted. “But I said to myself, let’s try a couple of laps and see what happens, kind of mess with his tyres a little bit.
“And then I saw actually, with our straight-line speed, I’m able to keep him behind and at bay, and kept in it, hung in there. I was really on the edge with everything.
“It got so intense. It was touch and go. I was really pushing hard to keep Checo behind. But the last two laps, my tyres were kind of really done with it. I almost lost the car completely out of Turn 10 in a big way, went on to the gravel a bit, and had a big tank stepper.
“Then he came by. But into Turn 3 I kind of let him edge in front so I could have DRS for the for the next straight, which obviously put me back in front.
“And luckily, it was the final lap. Because I would have not survived another lap.”
Earlier in the race, Hulkenberg wasn’t impressed when the Haas team’s pit strategy put him in an on-track battle with teammate Kevin Magnussen, leading him to make a sarcastic “great work” comment.
“I think they stopped him early,” he said. “Because he was under pressure and was getting undercut from, I guess, an RB [Daniel Ricciardo]. The undercut is super powerful here. So, obviously, I wasn’t so impressed with that.
“And I think there was a lack of instruction then afterwards what to do. Because it was only 10 laps into the race, a very long two stints ahead of us – but yeah, that’s just in the heat of the moment.”
Hulkenberg: We have been competitive all season
The sixth place was Hulkenberg’s best result and fourth points score of the 2024 season, and Magnussen gave Haas a further boost in eighth place.
“Obviously one car [Lando Norris] out, but still an amazing team performance today and this weekend,” he said.
“I think it’s confirmed now in the midfield, on all sorts of different tracks, we are competitive. We can fight everyone. And that’s really great news, and I’m very happy about that.
“If I look in the first 10 races now, five times, we’ve been 11th. Bery close, but we’ve been fighting in and around the top 10 pretty much everywhere, sometimes me, sometimes Kevin.
“I think testament to the to the good work we’ve done over the winter, and it just shows that we are competitive in the midfield.
“Over the winter, the team worked better than what we thought and what we think we can do. We just got positively surprised, and it’s much more stable than last year, different worlds, nothing to compare. It allows us to manage tyres, to be consistent, and that’s very important.”
Hulkenberg stressed the importance of being competitive at a range of different venues.
“You’ve got to be there weekend in, weekend out,” he said. “Consistency in a long season is key. Also, this year, we’ve obviously worked much better and more efficiently in terms of bringing updates.
“We’ve steadily improved the car. That means we can keep up with the others. We’ve got another one coming next weekend. So, excited for that. Silverstone is, anyway, one of my favourites. So I’m looking forward to a good week.”
