Haas achieves best result of 2024 with heavily-upgraded car
Haas finds itself on an upward trajectory after another strong result at the British Grand Prix. Nico Hulkenberg finished sixth in the second race in succession saw, strengthening the team’s position in the Constructors’ Championship.
Haas turned up at Silverstone with a heavily-upgraded car, bringing a host of aerodynamic upgrades to its VF-24. The modifications appeared to gel well with the high-speed Silverstone circuit.
Following a brilliant performance in qualifying on Saturday, Nico Hulkenberg capitalised on the misfortunes for George Russell and Charles Leclerc to finish sixth in the second race in succession.
“I’m very happy for the team, eight more points on the board – super valuable. More importantly, the performance is there with this update and that makes me optimistic for the remainder of the season.
“We’re definitely in the fight now for the fifth-fastest team, which is obviously positive and nobody expected that a few weeks ago. It’s very encouraging and very positive.
“It was a tricky race with the rain at the beginning which wasn’t enough for inters. Around here with high-speed corners and the grip like this, it was very risky, but we managed to keep it clean and got back what we lost at the start.”
His team-mate Kevin Magnussen could only manage 12th, but to be fair did not have all the latest updates available to his team mate.
“We pitted one lap too early I think, we were sort of in range of Albon and he stayed out another lap and opened the gap massively.
“The pace wasn’t that good on the soft tire really, I was graining immediately and just didn’t have a good stint. It’s great for Nico to score eight points today, that’s a really good couple of weekends for the team, and it’s super important. Iwish I could’ve contributed a little bit but I didn’t have it at the end.”
Speaking of his team’s performance in Great Britain, Haas team boss Ayao Komatsu labelled their results as “excellent”.
“It’s an excellent day. It's a shame we couldn’t score points with both cars as had Kevin not had that graining issue on the softs in the last stint, he would’ve been close to scoring points.
“Overall, P6 at two races in a row, what more can I ask for. The updates have worked again and Nico felt it straightaway on Friday, his qualifying on Saturday showed it and his race pace today showed it. Kevin in the old spec car was happy, but I think he had damage from FP2, so all in all today, these are results to be proud of.
“It wasn’t an easy race, there were changeable conditions and it’s easy to say you only have to put the right tires on at the right time, but it’s much more difficult to do, but we achieved that. It’s been a huge team effort so I’m really proud of them.”
