With Kevin Magnussen in the top 10 and Nico Hulkenberg in 13th, Haas will be hoping to pick up some much-needed points from his third home race of the season in Las Vegas. But while Hulkenberg was forced into a late retirement, it was not to be as the Dane dropped back to finish P13.
The German actually had the best start of the double, making up a few places before being forced into Turn 1 by a multi-car pile-up. From there, he went about managing his tires, hoping there would be enough drama. Move him forward – but instead, he suffered some late problems that saw him pull down the run and stop the car.
„Something went in the power unit, lost power, that’s it,” he said, following his second DNF of the season.
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Hulkenberg didn’t make it to the checkered flag Saturday night
“It’s not too bad [a race] In fact. We had to cut off traffic. I had a good start, but because of the crash, I had to go to the outside into Turn 1, I lost a few places, and then I was already behind, where I lost two positions.
“But after that I felt very comfortable in the car; I felt like we had a lot of speed, but there was always traffic or something [tyre] Grain protection means you can’t push it as far as you want, so it’s a bit limiting. But I would say one of the best weekends ever.
Hulkenberg was piloting an old-spec VF-23, while Magnussen was piloting an old-spec VF-23. Latest updated version First introduced in Austin. Haas admitted that their interaction was out of line, that the upgrades didn’t work as well as expected — but at least now there’s almost an entire race’s worth of data to compare the two to.
Magnussen was baffled by his lack of performance in Vegas
While Magnussen qualified in the top 10, equipped with improvements and the cooler temperatures likely helping their Achilles’ heel tire rupture, there were hopes of points in Vegas – but the Dane found himself immediately behind. Starting media started to wear.
It confused him, he admits, because the feeling in the car didn’t match the reality on the racetrack.
„I feel we had the degradation and speed to get points but we didn’t and we have to review that and see how we could have done better,” he said. „We felt like we had good degradation once and even at the end of the race, we saw the pace in the race.”
Haas is rooted to the bottom Constructor tableFour points ahead of Alfa Romeo in ninth place.