The Verstappen inspiration behind one of F1 2023’s other success stories

On the final lap of the 2019 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Carlos Sainz made a do-or-die move to secure 10th place and what was then his best Formula 1 championship finishing position. The driver he sold a beautiful dummy on into a corner at the Yas Marina track that no longer exists? Nico Hulkenberg. 

“Missing out on a point in potentially his last Formula 1 race serves as a sad microcosm for Nico Hulkenberg’s career,” so stated the 12 December 2019 issue of Autosport magazine. “He did a good job in underwhelming machinery, but ended without the result his ability and effort deserved. 

“[Sainz’s dive] cost him what might well have been his final point in F1.” 

Well, we were wrong about that. 

In fact, although Hulkenberg only returned as a full-time F1 driver at the start of the 2023 campaign, he added further points with impressive finishes in two of his Racing Point substitute appearances in the 2020 COVID-19-impacted season. That was just a year on from being dropped by Renault in favour of Esteban Ocon. 

A combination of factors played against Hulkenberg back in 2019. The first is that Renault was targeting the first phase of morphing into the current Alpine arrangement. The second was that Hulkenberg had gone from being Renault’s established leader, to trailing Daniel Ricciardo in a crucial area.  

But it’s one that he recognised back then and has now played an important part in his 2023 return. That is one of the few success stories further down the grid this year. 

Having joined Haas to replace the crash-prone Mick Schumacher, Hulkenberg has since established himself as the American squad’s leading driver. Incumbent team-mate Kevin Magnussen started strongly, but has tailed off since his impressive battles with Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari in Miami – the scene of the Dane’s sole 2023 Q3 appearance so far. 

Hulkenberg returned to F1 action this season after last having a full-time drive in 2019 with Renault

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

Hulkenberg, meanwhile, has shone against the clock – making the final qualifying cut six times. He also registered second in Canada Q3 before being penalised for a red flag infringement. Hulkenberg’s seventh place in the Australian GP remains Haas’s best result so far this season.  

“We keep fighting, we keep working,” Hulkenberg replies when Autosport asks how much satisfaction can be drawn from being a qualifying star, with Haas’s VF-23 hamstrung by its in-race tyre wear weakness.  

This has greatly restricted the team’s chances of scoring points, with the Melbourne event one of the few with tyre degradation low enough to allow Hulkenberg to lean on the rubber as he prefers. 

“When we signed and I started here, I knew it was not just going to be sunny days,” he continues, speaking at Spa on the eve of the 2023 summer break. “There’s also going to be tough days and work ahead of us.  

"I’ve had good cars and also had opportunities to deliver the podium, but then for various reasons, it never really clicked and happened" Nico Hulkenberg

“Of course, in that moment on Sundays, or during the race and right after, it is a bit frustrating and it is a bit disappointing. Not just for me but for the whole team. Because we’re all in it. And you have a great Saturday and obviously you feel hyped and expectations, especially from the outside, go up.  

“But we’ve known for a couple of months now - the Sunday are issues are just too big at the moment - to manage expectations within the team. But it still gives me pleasure. I still enjoy being back and all the positives outweigh the problems on Sunday.” 

Hulkenberg is unequivocal – he’s “100%” happy with his decision to target a full-time F1 return. That’s even as the 12 races he’s completed so far this term extend his record as having started the most races in the championship without scoring a podium. This, though, is a statistic he thinks should be viewed differently.

“Obviously, when you start thinking about it that’s a little bit frustrating,” Hulkenberg explains. “But at the same time, I’ve never had the car. I’ve had good cars and also had opportunities to deliver the podium, but then for various reasons it never really clicked and happened. But, to be honest, I’m still in a good, happy place – enjoying myself. And if I reflect back, of course there were things I could’ve done better. But I’m not bitter or frustrated about it.  

Hulkenberg's only points finish of the season on a Sunday so far came in Melbourne as Haas has struggled with tyre wear

Photo by: Mark Sutton

“I’m in a good place and going to hit 200 grands prix later in the season – somewhere around Mexico I think. And whilst not having the podium, I think if I would be so bad, I would’ve not managed to stick around 200 grands prix. So, there must be some good in there too somewhere.”

There is a particular positive energy around Haas right now. It has escaped the negative spiral of financial threat and team-mate wars that enveloped its previous four years – with each of those factors of greater and lesser significance at different points during that period.  

Its title sponsorship with MoneyGram now allows it to operate up against the cost cap’s upper limit and improves job security for its staff. Plus, as the two most high-profile employees, Hulkenberg and Magnussen help form a rather no-nonsense atmosphere. They are just getting on with the task at hand this year. 

But, for all that positivity, it remains true that barring a shock set of circumstances in one of the remaining 10 events in 2023, the VF-23 is not the package that is going to take Hulkenberg to the F1 podium for the first time. Nor Magnussen back to it.  

Haas is open about its struggles with a car that is now going it alone with the inwash-inducing sidepod concept. Although a switch to the Red Bull downwash approach has not been ruled out, floor and front wing changes are more likely post-summer break.  

The car differs to the rest in another way too – its engine cover falls down in several angled stages, resembling a Stegosaurus, where on the rest this attempt to influence airflow to rear and beam wings is far less pronounced.  

The car just loses “total grip”, per Hulkenberg, when running in traffic. And this, the soon-to-be 36-year-old says, is “not just one particular area or one axle”. This restricts Haas’s chances of making in-race gains as the tyres slide and overheat – forcing its drivers to either back off their pace and big DRS trains form behind them, or they are trapped following others.

Haas currently has a car that can really only shine in qualifying, but it seems that the area Hulkenberg knew where he had to improve as he faced the F1 exit in late 2019 is both a boon on Saturdays and also provides a tyre management gain in races too.  

The Haas VF-23 loses grip in traffic, restricting Haas’s chances of making in-race gains

Photo by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images

This is the ability to manage a sliding rear end at high speed that has made Red Bull’s Max Verstappen such a stunning F1 racer in recent years. Not only can Verstappen live with the rear swinging as he chucks a strong front-end car into an apex with searing speed, but he also does so in races without destroying his tyres. That combination has long been behind his spectacular results. 

Verstappen’s team-mate, Sergio Perez, cannot replicate this balance – especially on the faster tracks that make up the majority of F1’s current calendar. Verstappen also blends his handling preference with an innate ability to adapt to different corner types without losing his overall speed.

“In the past, I feel I was a bit too sensitive about it [rear end instability],” Hulkenberg says of this factor. “Especially when I compare with the top guys like Max, who is very tolerant – he’s probably the best of all of them.  

“That was also one thing coming into this year that I had on my sort of ‘to do list’. That I wanted to be less sensitive, accept it more, work with it. Obviously, there is [only accepting it] to a certain degree because if you slide too much and you heavily damage the tyres, that’s no good. You have to find the right balance.   

"A lot is just mental – where you’re at with your head. And that ultimately then decides about your confidence level” Nico Hulkenberg

“But I think that’s something where the break [post 2019] has also helped me. To realise that this is kind of natural and normal and I need to accept it and just work with it more. Rather than just trying to complain about it.”

Hulkenberg clarifies that his target of improving on coping better with rear end instability “wasn’t really a to do list” that many drivers envision ahead of each new campaign. For him that remains “always the same things: perform well, minimum mistakes, and squeeze everything out”.  

“But,” he continues, “that [rear end stability target] was one thing that has been in my head I would say from the last stint from of my first stretch in Formula 1. Which is something that somehow was present in my mind [ever since].” 

The rear-end instability question goes back to Hulkenberg’s 2019 Renault exit in that he felt in 2018 he had driven better with this in mind against then team-mate Sainz. But then versus Renault’s big-money signing Ricciardo the following year he was “struggling more with it than Daniel”.  

Hulkenberg has worked hard on coping better with rear end instability, emulating Verstappen

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

“It’s always a moving target – it’s dynamic,” Hulkenberg explains. “There are so many other factors why that is. And a lot is just mental – where you’re at with your head. And that ultimately then decides about your confidence level.” 

Although Haas is currently searching for answers that will help recover to its occasionally-podium-bothering F1 performance level, or even surpass that, Hulkenberg is seemingly operating in that confident state he desired. So far in 2023, there have still been the occasional error that littered his career to the end of 2019, such as that Montreal Q3 gaffe. Plus, F1 is still in its ever-extending tyre management era.  

The new ground effect cars have the downforce levels Hulkenberg prefers compared to the “2014/2015 [era that started in 2009, aerodynamically] cars” that were “very kind of low on downforce, very fragile in a way and you couldn’t really push”. But the drivers still have to often treat the tyres very gently overall to succeed. 

“These cars allow a little bit more to let out the natural driving style and push-ability,” Hulkenberg says. But Haas’s current tyre wear weakness means that this is, again, restricted.

Yet even if that lasts until the end of 2023 and requires an off-season redesign to address, what Hulkenberg has produced so far this year represents the start of a fine F1 career coda.

It’s clear that Haas appreciates his stability and lower crash bills compared to the driver he replaced. Hulkenberg says he and team boss Guenther Steiner are “pretty similar” in being “a very straightforward guy – no bullshit”. And Hulkenberg enjoys his boss’s “big library of jokes”, plus being able to talk in German together.

“It’s the first time in Formula 1 that I’ve had a team principal that I can talk my mother language to and that’s also kind of a nice side effect,” adds Hulkenberg, who has also formed a strong bond with race engineer Gary Gannon. His former Renault race engineer, Mark Slade, has been working with Magnussen for almost a year now.

When asked if he will be back with Haas in 2024, Hulkenberg doesn’t hesitate: “Probably, yes!” He’s confident and he should be. Relative to his car circumstances, this has been a successful F1 comeback so far.

Hulkenberg is confident of extending his F1 return beyond a one-year cameo

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images