Kevin Magnussen and Nico Hulkenberg collected a total of three points on Haas’ home ground during the 19-lap Sprint around COTA, seeing the team overtake VCARB in the standings. Haas now sit in P6 despite the teams being even on points (34) due to count back on highest race finishes.
The P7 finish for Magnussen and P8 for Hulkenberg is a record high finish for Haas at the United States Grand Prix in either a Sprint or full Grand Prix distance, and brings the team a vital three points in a close championship fight.
Ayao Komatsu, Haas Team Principal, was delighted with the result saying it was “the maximum we can achieve and we got that.”
“Really well managed between the two cars. The degradation was good. Everything was under control”, he said, “Superb job”.
The team came into the weekend with a substantial upgrade package, but it has been noted by Nico Hulkenberg that only he had this new package for the Sprint. The updates are aimed at bringing increased floor performance, which Komatsu believes is working given their limited degradation over the Sprint distance.
Though Magnussen is believed to be receiving these updates before grand prix qualifying, Hulkenberg denied that they were a “big factor” in their double points finish.
“I mean it’s very positive, obviously, to score with both cars. But you see even not the upgraded car that Kevin drove is going pretty strong as well. So, I don’t think it’s a big factor,” he said. “But we look competitive, so hopefully we can continue that trend.”
Whether in light of this performance the team will follow through with a revolution in car for Kevin, or stick with an evolution to maintain this performance remains to be seen, with even Magnussen himself unsure of the plan post-Sprint.
He said, “I think that will be conversations after the race. We assume that the upgrade is better and the data is supporting that. But it’s still kind of a bit uncomfortable changing your car completely after two good sessions like this.”
With just over two hours until qualifying gets underway, the team’s decision will be about weighing risk and reward in search of points to clear VCARB and claim P6 in the standings for good.
