Haas final added to their account within the F1 Dash Race on the Miami Grand Prix, when Nico Hülkenberg parlayed a tenth-place end in qualifying for the F1 Dash Race right into a seventh-place consequence within the F1 Dash Race itself, incomes two crucial factors for the workforce.
With System 1 returning to the F1 Dash format this weekend on the Austrian Grand Prix, can Haas return to the factors?
It has been a tough stretch for the workforce since Miami, with their greatest likelihood for factors coming within the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix at Imola. That weekend noticed Hülkenberg qualify tenth, however he completed in P11, one spot out of the factors. Since then they’ve been left on the skin wanting in, together with a double DNF in Monaco resulting from an opening-lap collision involving Sergio Pérez.
Their current struggles opened the door for Alpine, whose personal success the previous few weeks — with six factors over two race weekends — has seen the French outfit climb above them within the Constructors’ Championship standings. Alpine now sits seventh within the desk with eight factors, one level — and place — forward of Haas with seven factors.
As Haas heads to Purple Bull Ring together with the remainder of the grid for this weekend’s Austrian Grand Prix, they’re hopeful that current success at that circuit will support their quest for factors.
“It’s a brief observe that packs in lots of enjoyable,” stated Hülkenberg within the workforce’s media preview. “The size of the circuit means it bunches us all up over qualifying, which is a problem, however we have now two alternatives because it’s a Dash. Final 12 months I scored factors across the Purple Bull Ring, so I do know it may be carried out, and we need to be again scoring factors, in order that’s the mission in Spielberg.”
On the opposite facet of the storage Kevin Magnussen — who’s hoping to have his F1 future resolved “quickly” — is cautious that the numerous high-speed corners in Austria may pose an issue for the workforce’s VF-24.
“It’s a enjoyable observe; I’ve received some good reminiscences from the Purple Bull Ring, that’s the place we’ve had our greatest workforce consequence so I’m wanting ahead to going there once more,” described Magnussen. “We have now fairly an environment friendly automotive so hopefully with our good straight-line pace we will be good there. There’s nonetheless a good variety of high-speed corners, which is maybe not our power, however we appear to be fairly constantly good at most tracks. I’m simply wanting ahead to a enjoyable Dash weekend.”
Haas Race Engineer Mark Slade walked by means of the number of corners Purple Bull Ring presents, and the way every could, or could not, swimsuit the workforce’s challenger.
“One of many important issues concerning the Purple Bull Ring is that it’s a really quick lap so it will get busy, significantly in apply and qualifying. It’s a pleasant combination of low-, medium-, and high-speed corners, and clearly in a spectacular setting so it seems superb, and it does present fairly a big problem for us when setting the automotive up,” described Slade. “We’ve had some points with medium-speed corners, so we’re anticipating to need to handle that, it’s going to be a problem for us, however then again in low-speed corners, we’ve usually been superb at them and we predict we’ve taken a step ahead in high-speed corners just lately. We’ll see how we get on, however we’ve received a plan after all.”
Whereas many groups have addressed the challenges a compressed F1 Dash week places in entrance of them, Slade outlined how for a workforce like Haas, there are added advantages to the condensed schedule.
“There’s lots of further work for a Dash, particularly in amongst a triple-header, but it surely additionally makes it very attention-grabbing, it’s all part of System 1,” stated Slade. “You need to be practical that you simply’re not going to have the ability to do every thing you’d love to do with one apply session, so you must choose an important factors that you simply assume are related to getting the most effective out of the automotive in each the Dash and the race and work to attain these targets – it’s a really compressed, extremely edited run plan.
“The format of a Dash is completely different from earlier years, so you may afford to be slightly bit extra experimental within the Dash race as a result of factors solely go to eighth place, and realistically we’re chasing that final points-paying place so it means we will attempt issues that we wouldn’t essentially have tried, understanding we will change issues for the race.”
Slade and the remainder of the workforce get their first crack at Purple Bull Ring this Friday.
