Zero points, few disappointments
There were no points for the Haas in his third and final home grand prix of this season at Las Vegas, but the US team can still be moderately satisfied with the performance of both drivers. Even with Nico Hülkenberg retiring in the final stages of the race due to technical problems, both he and his teammate Kevin Magnussen they have become more comfortable with the car and tire degradation over the course of this season.
The potential to finish in the top-10
The first confirmation came from the Dane, author of an excellent qualifying, finishing in eighth position, but with a race that did not allow him to fight for the points zone, until he finished in 13th place: “I feel that we had the degradation and the pace to score pointsbut we didn’t, so I need to review how we could have done better – he has declared – it seems to me that for once we had good degradation and a good pace in the race, even at the end of the stints. There were a lot of track evolutions during the race, which is fine and part of the challenge. I enjoyed myself”.
The least bitter retreat
Disappointed with the outcome of the race Hülkenberg, forced to abandon the car in the final laps of the GP but still ‘satisfied’ with the test: “Something happened that made me lose power, so we will investigate – commented – the race pace wasn’t bad, I had a good start, but with the accident at turn 1 I had to go wide on the outside and I lost a lot of positions, so I was already behind. After that, I felt quite comfortable with the car and felt we had more pace, but there was always traffic and for graining protection you couldn’t push as hard as you wanted, so this was limiting. All in all, though, I’d say that it was one of the best races“.
Steiner defends the team
Haas will show up this weekend at bringing up the rear in the Constructors’ classificationbut with the good opportunity to be able to recover on theAlfa Romeodistant 4 points and also outside the top-10 in Las Vegas: “Both drivers fought hard today to get the best out of the car, and I believe they succeeded by staying ahead of our direct rivals – explained the Team Principal Günther Steiner – we couldn’t get close to the bigger ones and both cars got stuck behind a Williams (they are very fast on the straights) and we couldn’t get through. For Nico, unfortunately something happened to the engine and Kevin finished in P13. I don’t think we did anything wrong“.
