Steiner confident that Hulkenberg will be 'straight on it'

Haas F1 team principal Guenther Steiner is confident that Nico Hulkenberg will be straight up to speed in 2023 when he takes over from Mick Schumacher alongside Kevin Magnussen.

Hulkenberg has been out of full-time F1 competition since 2019 when he was dropped by Renault in favour of Esteban Ocon.

But the 35-year-old German did make two race appearances in 2020 for Racing Point, replacing full time drivers Sergio Perez and Lance Stroll at short notice and finished P8 at Silverstone and the Nurburgring respectively.

• Read also: Hulkenberg's return a 'poor reflection' of F1's talent pool, says Webber

And he had two further outings in 2022, replacing Sebastian Vettel in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, with the team now running under the Aston Martin brand.

It's these stand-out, stand-in outings that convinced that Steiner that Hulkenberg will have no problem jumping into next year's Haas and quickly being a match for Magnussen.

"When he came in, when he replaced drivers in the last years, he was pretty on the ball straight away," Steiner told Motorsport.com.

"We obviously had that question as well: 'Is he straight on the ball when he comes back after being out?'" he acknowledged. "But then you look at the results he did when he just jumped in last minute, he was pretty good."

Since it was announced that Hulkenberg would be back to full-time racing for Haas next year, he's had the opportunity to get familiar with the current VF-22 in post-season testing at Abu Dhabi.

Hulkenberg will now have the winter off-season to prepare himself for the physical demands of racing in F1.

"We cross that bridge next year, but he’s pretty fit," Steiner said. "We’ve also got pre-season testing in Bahrain. I think he will be straight on it.

"Physically, these F1 cars are quite demanding, and it will take him some time to get used to it because the only way you train your muscles is driving the cars."

In ten seasons in F1 starting with his debut in the 2010 Bahrain GP, Hulkenberg made 177 race starts with Williams, Force India, Sauber and Renault.but never managed to finish on the podium.

His best results were in Belgium (2012), Korea (2013) and Belgium again (2016) when he finished in fourth place.

The decision to bring Hulkenberg in clearly shows that Steiner is seeking experience at the team, and a safe pair of hands after a number of costly crashes for Schumacher in his two seasons with the squad.

"Maybe we see things in the team now, which we need to fix in the team, where we can do better with somebody else," Steiner said last month when asked why he had decided to drop Schumacher.

"There is a shorter way [of achieving that] by taking a guy with a lot of experience and he has done this in multiple teams, which were in similar positions like we are now.

"We didn’t take this decision, as people think, before the summer. It took us this long to decide what is best for the team, as I always said. He drove hard and good in some races.

“Mick improved a lot this season. You all saw it, I don’t have to tell you that," he added. "I’m not blaming it on Mick that we are where we are.

"[But] we need to go forward again and that’s the best with experienced people and drivers which have done this before, which can bring experiences into our team which they have made in other teams.

Schumacher called the team's decision 'very disappointing' but set his sights on a future return to the F1 grid.

“Those years together have helped me to mature both technically and personally," he said at the time the announcement was made.

"It was at times bumpy, but I steadily improved, learned a lot and now know for sure that I deserve a place in F1," he said. "When things got difficult, I realised how much I love this sport."

And as Hulkenberg's story shows, the door is far from closed for Schumacher - not to mention Magnussen, who was dropped by Steiner at the end of 2020 only to be recalled at the start of 2022.

"No, absolutely not, and I'll explain why," Steiner said if he regretted letting Magnussen go when he did. "Two years ago we were in a different position and now we are in a different position again.

"I think we're in a lot better position now in F1 in general than two years ago, when we had to find solutions how to keep on going."

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