25/08/2024
NEWS STORY
MoneyGram Haas F1 Team finished with Nico Hulkenberg 11th and Kevin Magnussen 18th, at the Dutch Grand Prix, Round 15 of the 2024 FIA Formula 1 World Championship - held Sunday at Circuit Zandvoort.
Hulkenberg started from 12th on the grid on Pirelli P Zero Yellow medium tires and gained a spot off the line, before conceding a place to the recovering Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton. Hulkenberg made an early pit stop on lap 14, switching onto White hard tires, and cycled through to ninth place as the pit stop phase played out. Hulkenberg consequently ran a lengthy 57-lap stint on the hard tires but was unable to prevent Pierre Gasly and Fernando Alonso - on fresher tires - from moving ahead in the closing stages, leaving the German driver to classify in 11th position.
Magnussen took the start from the pit-lane after the Energy Store and Control Electronics were 
changed in his VF-24 prior to the race. Magnussen ran a long first stint on the hard compound before pitting on lap 40 for medium tires, cycling through to emerge ahead of Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu. Magnussen finished the race in 18th, having battled in the closing stages with RB driver Yuki Tsunoda.
Up front McLaren driver Lando Norris registered his second career victory, ahead of Red Bull Racing's Max Verstappen and Scuderia Ferrari's Charles Leclerc.
Nico Hulkenberg: "I feel a bit disappointed right now. After what was a very difficult weekend, we actually managed to turn around two meaningful sessions. It was looking very promising for a lot of the race but I don't think we got the strategy right, or we might have been too aggressive with the pitstop, but I need to go back and understand more. At the end, Pierre (Gasly) and Fernando (Alonso) had much fresher tires so I couldn't fight back. It's a shame as maybe a point or two would've been possible today but overall it was a good recovery from what was a difficult weekend."
Kevin Magnussen: "Starting from the pit-lane - we knew it was going to be a difficult race - and it was. I think the pace looked decent from where I was although I still need to see the times of everyone, but it felt strong when I was fighting people. I had an off on lap one or two, and that cost me a place, and then I got stuck in traffic after the first stop. I don't think we had bad pace and although we haven't come away with much, the pace felt decent - not great, but not bad. Hopefully the next races with more medium downforce levels are going to be good for us."
Ayao Komatsu, Team Principal: "Nico had a very good race, of course, he started the weekend off the backfoot which translated into poor qualifying position but from P12 he had a very strong race. We didn't execute our strategy very well, we didn't do certain basics well and I think we could've fought for P9 or P10 if we'd had better race execution. On Kevin's side, we had to change his battery so he started from the pit-lane. At this circuit, it's very difficult to recover but I think we did the best we could. With the traffic and our car's strengths and weaknesses in certain places, he couldn't do a lot so he was limited. There are certain positives, like Nico's performance was very strong and I think Kevin in clear air was strong as well, so there are positives, but we need to put it all together next weekend."
Check out our Sunday gallery from Zandvoort here.