Refreshed Nico Hulkenberg hoping to carry the 'good momentum' into the next few races
Nico Hulkenberg mentioned that he feels refreshed coming back to F1 after a stunning race in Australia.
The German qualified inside the top 10 once again for Haas but this time around he was able to have sustained speed throughout the race. Haas tends to struggle with race pace and Nico Hulkenberg has himself found it hard on his return in the long runs.
All of this did not deter him at Albert Park as he held his ground and was on course to finish P8 in the race. The red flag restart did momentarily lift Nico Hulkenberg to P4 with Carlos Sainz ahead of him. However, with the order getting reversed to the previous lap, Hulkenberg would finally finish the race in P7.
After the race, the German admitted that he felt refreshed in his comeback and hoped to continue to build momentum going into the season. Looking back at the race, he told F1TV:
“It was wild and a bit messy at times. We’ll have to look through everything that happened as there were a lot of things happening. I had a super start the third time around on softs and came through to P4, so it’s a shame there were a few incidents and then the race was red-flagged."
He added:
"There are a lot of positive learnings again and I feel there are a lot of good things happening. I’m refreshed, in a very positive mindset and really enjoy working with the team and experimenting with the car. We have very good momentum and that’s what we want to take into the next races.”
Nico Hulkenberg's teammate's contrasting fortunes
Nico Hulkenberg's teammate Kevin Magnussen had contrasting fortunes as the Danish driver was eliminated in Q2. To add to this, Magnussen did not have a great race and a collision with the wall ended things prematurely for him.
Talking to F1 TV about the race, he said:
"We got unlucky with the first red flag as we had just pitted from P11 and we seemed to be quicker than the next couple of cars so I was quite confident at that stage of the race."
"Then we pitted under the safety car and just afterwards, it turned to a red flag. Everyone put their tires on to go to the end of the race and we were last. It wasn’t my day but it seemed like the car had decent pace so I’m encouraged by that and we’ll push next time.”
Hulkenberg's points in Albert Park were his first since he came back to the sport. The driver will be hoping to build on this momentum in the coming races.