Nico Hulkenberg left 'disappointed' despite ‘promising’ Dutch Grand Prix as Haas admit to strategy blunder

Nico Hulkenberg remained "disappointed" that he couldn't score in the Dutch Grand Prix, in what was an up and down weekend for the Haas driver in Zandvoort.

The German appeared to be struggling with his brakes for all three practice sessions, ultimately crashing twice into the barriers. But the team never confirmed an issue, and in the dry he seemed much more comfortable. He started the race from 12th on the grid, and ran in the top 10 in the closing stages after an ambitious one-stop strategy.

Haas brought Hulkenberg in at a very early stage to undercut him past some rivals, but that left the German on 57-lap-old hard tyres at the end of the race, and he just didn’t have the grip left to defend from Pierre Gasly and Fernando Alonso, dropping from ninth to 11th.

ZANDVOORT, NETHERLANDS - AUGUST 25: Nico Hulkenberg of Germany driving the (27) Haas F1 VF-24 — Hulkenberg couldn't make an ambitious one-stop strategy work in the Netherlands

“I feel a bit disappointed right now,” Hulkenberg said following the Grand Prix. “After what was a very difficult weekend, we actually managed to turn around two meaningful sessions.

“It was looking very promising for a lot of the race but I don’t think we got the strategy right, or we might have been too aggressive with the pitstop, but I need to go back and understand more.

“At the end, Pierre [Gasly] and Fernando [Alonso] had much fresher tyres so I couldn’t fight back. It’s a shame as maybe a point or two would’ve been possible today but, overall, it was a good recovery from what was a difficult weekend.”

Hulkenberg was briefly helped out by his team mate Kevin Magnussen, who had started from the pit lane after requiring a battery change overnight. He tried his best to hold up some challengers and buy Hulkenberg more time – in a similar strategy to that Haas deployed in Saudi Arabia.

ZANDVOORT, NETHERLANDS - AUGUST 25: Kevin Magnussen of Denmark driving the (20) Haas F1 VF-24 — Magnussen did his best to play the team game and back up the pack in the hopes Hulkenberg might score

But it was to no avail and when Magnussen eventually pitted, having been the only car to start on the hard compound, he dropped down the field to finish 18th.

“Starting from the pit lane, we knew it was going to be a difficult race and it was,” the Dane said. “I don’t think we had bad pace and although we haven’t come away with much, the pace felt decent – not great, but not bad. Hopefully the next races with more medium downforce levels are going to be good for us.”

Team Principal Ayao Komatsu admitted afterwards that “we didn’t execute our strategy very well,” before continuing to say that P9 or P10 was possible “if we’d had better race execution.”

Fortunately for Haas, their championship rivals RB didn't manage to score in the Netherlands with the American team remaining just seven points behind in the battle for sixth in the constructors'.