How Hulkenberg transformed his F1 career with Haas

Battling a podium-bound McLaren; resisting Fernando Alonso’s faster Aston Martin for an age; holding off a Red Bull to score two more precious points for Haas in the 2024 constructors’ battle. No wonder Nico Hulkenberg sees his starring Singapore Grand Prix drive as “redemption”.

It came one week on from the unseen gaffes right at the end of the Azerbaijan GP that cost him an even better result. But, more than anything else, it’s a reminder of how good Hulkenberg has been – again – in F1’s crowded midfield. Since his full-time return to F1 with Haas at the start of last year, he has been superb.

Last year, Hulkenberg was able to get to grips with rear-end sliding, a bugbear from his earlier F1 career, and was able to shine in qualifying. But races were generally a tortuous affair, as the Haas VF-23 chomped through its tyres and Hulkenberg and team-mate Kevin Magnussen would drop through the pack.

This year’s VF-24 is much improved. The American squad’s first year without Guenther Steiner at the helm has featured a car with which the team and its drivers can now race, and Haas’s upgrade plan has unlocked further performance. Magnussen went so far as to claim: “It’s the first time in Haas’s history that we brought upgrades to the car that made it faster.”

For Hulkenberg, this means a current points score of 24 (from Haas’s total of 31) versus nine (and 12 for Haas) across all last term. And the team is in an almighty scrap with RB for sixth place in the constructors’ championship.

That just three points separate them with six races left in 2024 underlines why new Haas team principal Ayao Komatsu was so angry with Hulkenberg getting “flustered” at the end in Baku. There, his late wallstrike and lack of reaction to the non-activation of the safety car meant that Franco Colapinto, Lewis Hamilton and temporary team-mate Ollie Bearman all snuck ahead.

Hulkenberg has been a star in F1's tightly-contested midfield and by leading the line for Haas

Photo by: Alastair Staley / Motorsport Images

Three days before this, Hulkenberg is waiting for us in the Haas hospitality in Baku. He’s as perfectly presented as ever – the ease of his situation with those prized Haas points and his long-term Audi future wafting along warmly with him. To think again that this was a driver facing F1 career oblivion in 2019 is staggering.

It’s not just on track where Hulkenberg has been one of the stories of 2024. His part in the 2025 driver market jamboree may have ended all of five months ago, but he remains a major piece of the complex overall picture.

The 37-year-old German is still the only confirmed Sauber driver for next season, and he has a contract that will cover its transformation to Audi the following year. Six years on from his rejection by Renault, Hulkenberg will lead a massive OEM in its first foray into F1 racing.

"I feel this year that I’ve stepped up my race performances as well in terms of consistency, in terms of tyre management"Nico Hulkenberg

“I think I’m driving well,” he offers after a long pause and a laugh, considering, perhaps, all that’s happened this year. “I’ve taken my lessons from last year. Then, obviously, the Saturdays really stood out – it was very obvious for everyone. But Sundays, you couldn’t really do much because the package wasn’t competitive on a Sunday and that was a fundamental car issue.

“I feel this year that I’ve stepped up my race performances as well in terms of consistency, in terms of tyre management. But not just me, together with the team – we’ve really put a big emphasis on that over the winter and earlier in the year and kind of really improved on that side a lot compared to last year. So, yeah, on a whole, happy and good.”

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Komatsu is far more effusive when asked to describe Hulkenberg’s form in 2024. “Brilliant,” he replies. “He just gives us a reference. He rarely makes mistakes. Once in several races, he makes, let’s say, one significant mistake in one of the free practice sessions, but that’s it.

“He’s very professional, he’s self-critical as well. And if he makes mistakes, he owns up to it. If you count how many times he’s going to Q3 [eight so far versus eight in the whole of 2023] for us, it’s amazing and also the number of points he scored. So, he’s been brilliant.”

The German's defiance against Perez for a valiant sixth place in Austria was a highlight

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

The highest points of Hulkenberg’s 2024 season so far are his back-to-back sixth places at the Red Bull Ring and Silverstone. In Austria, he spiritedly held off Sergio Perez’s Red Bull late on; in Britain his pace on ageing soft tyres was key.

In 2023, the closest Hulkenberg and Haas got to this was seventh in Australia. And in order to grab better and more consistent points finishes in 2024, something Haas did back in Bahrain pre-season testing ended up being critical.

This was time spent concentrating almost exclusively on high-fuel race simulations. The aim was to see whether the VF-24’s aerodynamic platform stability had improved, assess exactly what difference the team could make with differential, brake bias and engine braking settings adjustments, and understand how the drivers’ differing treatment of the tyres in pushing later or earlier would impact their life over a stint. Haas went through 15 long-run stints across the opening two days, before both Magnussen and Hulkenberg did a full race simulation on the final day.

PLUS: Why Haas is a crunch barometer of F1's biggest improvers in 2024

“A good learning experience for us,” Hulkenberg attests. “We don’t, obviously, in race weekends have a lot of practice to play around with that. So, it was good, but at the same time because the car and the aero characteristic was so fundamentally different, we were not in the same boat anymore as last year. It was immediately better.”

Komatsu insists “yes, the car is better, so it’s easier to manage”, but “from his [Hulkenberg’s] side as well, I think his understanding is much better” when it comes to working the current Pirellis, as a result of this time spent in testing.

“Because we’ve been focused on it from day one, I think he knows how much time on tyre management will make a difference,” adds Komatsu. “So, he’s much more open to input as well. So, on the long run sustained running, I think he’s better. Qualifying, I think same, but ‘same’ as in ‘very good’.

“We had to do that race practice – tyre management – in pre-season testing. Last year, of course we were trying to get him to do the management, but he’s not totally bought into it because he hasn’t experienced how much difference it’s going to make. And then obviously on race weekends the main things we do is an FP1 high fuel run and FP2 high fuel run.

“It’s not a back-to-back test or anything. So, it’s very difficult for everyone, including himself, to accept this is a result of this action. This is why we just focused on it in pre-season testing because you can get answers doing back-to-back to back-to-back – with different driving styles, different settings, different ways of introducing tyres.”

Hulkenberg did need some convincing ahead of pre-season testing to focus on solving a weakness for both him and the Haas car

Photo by: Lubomir Asenov / Motorsport Images

Hulkenberg’s previous reluctance to focus on such an approach comes through when he asks: “Did we have to do that much in hindsight? Maybe not.” But it’s clear that he’s feeling the benefit now: “It was good and if you do low fuel runs in testing, for me anyway, that’s not very useful – I don’t need it. So, I liked the way we approached that.”

Asked why Hulkenberg hadn’t wanted to focus on tyre management on his F1 return in early 2023, Komatsu explains: “You’ve got to believe that it’s going to have such sensitivity. You’re telling the driver, ‘You’ve got to lose tenths in certain corners’. How painful is that?

“But then you’ve got to understand, ‘If you do this, you see the payback in a good way. If you don’t do it, this is the result of it.’ But unless you experience it and see on the data – feel it back-to-back – it’s very difficult to accept it black and white.

"You’re telling the driver, ‘You’ve got to lose tenths in certain corners’. How painful is that?" Ayao Komatsu

“I don’t think tyre management was ever his strength. If you look at the previous races he used to do with Renault, I don’t think it was his strength and obviously these tyres are so sensitive. So, again, when he came back in 2023 in the pre-season testing, of course, we didn’t have the same focus, right? But this winter, for me, there was no option.

“It’s not optional. It’s not conditional. It’s just, ‘No, we’ve got to understand this one. We’ve got to get the drivers to experience it – the consequences, positive or negative – then they will buy into it. Then they know why they’re doing what they’re doing.’”

For Haas insiders, another key aspect of Hulkenberg’s year-on-year gains has been his effort away from the track. He plays this down as, “Two zoom calls – not that hard!”, but it’s clear that his time spent away from the team means he returns focused on exactly where they should start each race weekend to quickly kick on with car set-up and managing the tricky tyres.

The Hulkenberg-Haas partnership now only has quarter of a season left to run. Soon, it will be Sauber benefiting from his efforts. Komatsu says he has “nothing to regret because I tried my best” when the topic of Haas keeping Hulkenberg’s services for 2025 is broached, and won’t be drawn on why it didn’t happen. It seems most likely that Audi’s offer was one that team owner Gene Haas was unwilling to match.

PLUS: Why it isn't only speed that enthuses Haas about Bearman

Despite Hulkenberg's success at Haas, it will be a tall order to replicate it instantly at Sauber next year pre-Audi transformation

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

Given how badly Sauber has struggled this season – and the long lead times on turning car performance around that Haas knows only too well – Hulkenberg will surely struggle to score similar headline results when he returns to Hinwil for the first time since 2013.

Nevertheless he still “feels good about the decision”, and is benefiting from the “comfortable and luxurious situation to be in to have it [his long-term F1 future] nailed down so early. It’s not always been like this for me. I know the other side more actually than being so early on! So yeah, that’s good, but obviously work doesn’t start there until next year.”

A Hulkenberg-Audi partnership is enticing for motorsport aficionados. The thought of future success in other categories, in particular. Regarding Le Mans, where his race win with Audi sister marque Porsche in 2015 remains his most recent victory, he will only say: “Never say never, but it’s not something that is really on my mind or that’s on my bucket list.” Even so, he appreciates how an Audi link “offers opportunities”.

He acknowledges “probably, yes” when asked whether this is the last big swing of his F1 career. But, given how close it came to ending in 2019, his position is remarkable.

“I don’t know where I will be in a few years’ time once I call it a day,” he concludes. “But I also think it should not be on my mind now. I should be very in the present, focused to maximise every weekend, to get the most out of this because this is the most kind of valuable and fruitful days and years in my career.”

Given how Hulkenberg is achieving with Haas, and is soon to be among Audi’s more considerable resources, these are the final chapters of a career worthy of much respect playing out. Harping on about that record of 221 races without a podium is unwarranted. F1 is all the better for Hulkenberg’s long story.

However his future unfolds at Audi, Hulkenberg will have fond memories of his time at Haas

Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images