Nico Hülkenberg hoping Haas can continue to push up the F1 grid

AUSTIN — 2023 was a difficult season for Haas.

The American-based Formula 1 team found themselves at the back of the grid, finishing last in the F1 Constructors’ Championship. That led to some massive changes during the offseason, including the departure of Guenther Steiner as Team Principal, with Ayao Komatsu stepping into that role.

With the grid back in America for this week’s United States Grand Prix, Haas is in a much different position than they were a year ago. They sit seventh in the Championship, just three points behind Visa Cash App RB F1 Team.

Meeting with the media, including SB Nation, ahead of the United States Grand Prix, Nico Hülkenberg pointed to a much better starting point to the year as a huge reason for their success in 2024.

“I think for starters, the whole starting point was much better,” began Hülkenberg. “The foundation was a lot stronger that side, and that helped the tire side a lot better.”

During pre-season testing in Bahrain, Haas focused heavily on tire management, an issue that plagued them a year ago. Take the Canadian Grand Prix for example, where Hülkenberg qualified on the front row alongside Max Verstappen. He would start the race fifth due to a grid penalty, but finished back in 15th as the tires on his VF-23 immediately wore down.

With that focus on tire management this year, Haas has improved considerably, and the standings tell that tale.

“Plus in terms of that, we spent quite a lot of energy and focus on tire management and how to handle them,” described Hülkenberg. “And I think that all combined gave us a much stronger foundation.”

The driver also credited Komatsu and some of the changes he has made.

“And again [Komatsu] taking over, he’s made some good changes, in the organization on the technical side, moved a few people around, and I think that kind of freed up people to enhance how the whole organization works,” outlined Hülkenberg.

Haas is bringing some upgrades to Austin, and while they might not be on the level of the package the team brought to Silverstone earlier this season, in what Hülkenberg described as a much bigger package, Haas can extract more performance from upgrades this season, which is also a big reason for their improvement this year.

“So, last year, I think it was just a quite poor showing, and then this year it’s been more in line with how things should be,” described Hülkenberg. “Whenever we did bring upgrades [this year], it actually went in the right direction, and elevated us, and caused almost a bigger upgrade in terms of expected lap time gain.”

Hülkenberg and Haas will hope for even more lap time gains this week, as they try and chase down VCARB in the F1 Constructors’ Championship standings.