Nico Hulkenberg believes that something was amiss on his VF-24 after the Canadian Grand Prix weekend and urged his team to investigate his car ahead of this week’s race in Barcelona.
Hulkenberg and teammate Kevin Magnussen were in the mix at the start of the race in Montreal thanks to their strategic choice to the rain-hit event on full-wets instead of inters.
The call immediately made up for Hulkenberg’s mediocre P19 performance in qualifying, but unfortunately, drying track conditions forced an early pitstop on both Haas drivers who fell down the order.
While the German concluded his day just outside the points in eleventh position, he reckoned that a better handling car from the outset of his race weekend would have allowed to target a top-ten finish in Montreal.
"The missed opportunity was yesterday [Saturday] and generally all weekend,” Hulkenberg said after his race at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. .
"The problem we've had on my car - that somehow it's not fully healthy, I think, on the aero side or somewhere.
©Haas
"I still feel after the race that I have a problem with it, that is not fully at 100% where we're supposed to be. But you know, obviously, you do what you can with what you have.
"But obviously, also not having the Friday, not having time to react after that is... it's just altogether a difficult weekend with the circumstances."
Hulkenberg called on his team to conduct a thorough review of his car’s heath a she felt that something didn’t just “feel right”.
"The whole weekend, especially on my side of the garage, and from lap one, I didn't feel right and happy with the car, and we need to investigate what was going on because that really compromised our weekend,” he said.
"Everything that happened, and then quali, cost us a better result because I'm sure with a better quali that we normally have, if we start further ahead, we would have scored points. So it's kind of a missed opportunity."
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