Hulkenberg ‘maximised’ his race in the US but Magnussen left frustrated by ‘messy’ strategy calls

Haas had a very strong weekend in Austin with both cars scoring in the Sprint and Nico Hulkenberg adding more points to the team’s tally in the Grand Prix. But it might have been so much better had Kevin Magnussen also managed to score, with team boss Ayao Komatsu bemoaning some “messy communication” between driver and team in Texas.

The American team brought a host of upgrades to the US Grand Prix, which seemed to move the car forward in the tight midfield pecking order – and crucially ahead of RB, their championship rivals. Haas went into the weekend trailing RB by three points, but ended it ahead by two.

Hulkenberg was pleased with the progress made as he climbed from 11th on the grid to finish eighth, managing a long opening stint that paved the way for the German to jump ahead of some of his rivals.

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“I think I maximised what was possible, even at the end, like not chasing down but getting closer to Checo [Perez] in a Red Bull,” Hulkenberg said.

“So, very positive all in all. A solid one-stop that kind of halfway through the first stint felt very poor and difficult but suddenly it recovered and the tyres came back to me. Going long there opened the door for this race and this result.”

But his team mate wasn’t left with the same sort of satisfaction. After running as high as seventh in the opening stages, Magnussen was two seconds behind Pierre Gasly in the battle for sixth and the team decided to pull him in for an aggressive early stop to try and undercut his rival.

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With higher-than-expected tyre degradation in the Sprint, Pirelli had predicted that a two-stop race was at hand – and Haas pitted Magnussen early under this assumption. But he then came out in traffic and had to work hard to climb back up the order, only to receive the call to pit again – despite most cars having opted to switch to a one-stop strategy by that point.

“Not sure you can call it unlucky but that’s the way it is, didn’t get any points today and think we had a good chance to do that but didn’t manage to,” was his succinct answer after the race, before he added that he needed to speak to the team to understand what had happened.

Some observers had initially believed the Dane to be suffering from a slow puncture, such was the frantic haste with which he was called in for his second stop – but Team Principal Ayao Komatsu clarified afterwards that it had been a strategic call.

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“[Hulkenberg] executed a very good one-stop strategy, and considering the situation he managed the tyres very well and communicated well. On Kevin’s side, it was almost the opposite as our baseline was a two-stop strategy and then there was some messy communication towards the end of the race.

“I feel that we should’ve scored points with both cars today, although Kevin may have struggled to hang on top P10, at least he would’ve had a chance.”