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 end result within the F1 Dash Race itself, incomes two vital factors for the group.
With Method 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 group since Miami, with their greatest probability 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 surface wanting in, together with a double DNF in Monaco as a result of an opening-lap collision involving Sergio Pérez.
Their latest 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 latest success at that circuit will assist their quest for factors.
“It’s a brief observe that packs in a number of enjoyable,” mentioned Hülkenberg within the group’s media preview. “The size of the circuit means it bunches us all up over qualifying, which is a problem, however we now have 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 completed, and we wish 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 might pose an issue for the group’s VF-24.
“It’s a enjoyable observe; I’ve bought some good reminiscences from the Purple Bull Ring, that’s the place we’ve had our greatest group end result so I’m wanting ahead to going there once more,” described Magnussen. “We now have fairly an environment friendly automobile so hopefully with our good straight-line velocity we may be good there. There’s nonetheless a good variety of high-speed corners, which is probably not our power, however we appear to be fairly persistently good at most tracks. I’m simply wanting ahead to a enjoyable Dash weekend.”
Haas Race Engineer Mark Slade walked by the number of corners Purple Bull Ring provides, and the way every might, or might not, go well with the group’s challenger.
“One of many foremost issues concerning the Purple Bull Ring is that it’s a really quick lap so it will get busy, notably 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 to be wonderful, and it does present fairly a major problem for us when setting the automobile 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 however in low-speed corners, we’ve typically been superb at them and we expect we’ve taken a step ahead in high-speed corners just lately. We’ll see how we get on, however we’ve bought 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 group like Haas, there are added advantages to the condensed schedule.
“There’s a number of additional work for a Dash, particularly in amongst a triple-header, however it additionally makes it very attention-grabbing, it’s all part of Method 1,” mentioned Slade. “It’s a must to be lifelike that you just’re not going to have the ability to do every part you’d love to do with one apply session, so you need to choose an important factors that you just suppose are related to getting the most effective out of the automobile 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 totally different from earlier years, so you possibly can afford to be a little bit 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, figuring out we will change issues for the race.”
Slade and the remainder of the group get their first crack at Purple Bull Ring this Friday.
