Hulkenberg sensational in Singapore: “Hard to keep Perez behind”

Three of a kind points

The particularly positive moment of the Haas this season, which in the last three races has finished in the points zone with three different drivers: if in Monza it had hit the top-10 with Kevin Magnussen, the latter’s disqualification for Baku had pushed the American team to call Oliver Bearman as a substitute, with the Englishman 10th in the Azerbaijan GP. The last step forward was finally made Nico Hulkenberg in Singapore.

Hulkenberg back in top 10

The German, already among the protagonists of the qualifications with the 6th place, had to give in to the return of the Ferraris and to Fernando Alonso only after the pit stop, resisting in the second stint to the Red Bull of Sergio Perez and crossing the finish line in ninth position. A result that allows Hülkenberg to return to the points zone for the first time since the British GP: “I’m happy to have got some points – he commented – There are some things to check and review on our part, but otherwise it was a clean raceIt wasn’t very eventful, but it was It was very stressful keeping the Red Bull behind for the whole second stintit was difficult to bring it home. We did it and I’m happy, it’s a bit of redemption for last week. We’ve been through it many times this season and it’s not the first time we’ve done it. Yesterday we put ourselves in a good position with qualifying, which was another key point. I had a clean start, a clean race and it’s important that we got these points.”

Magnussen’s return to forget

More unfortunate, however, was the test of Kevin Magnussen. On his return from suspension, the Dane suffered a drilling after a contact with the barriers. After the pit stop for the inevitable tire change, the #20 finally gave up five laps from the end for a technical problem: “I punctured – he added – sometimes you hit a tricky spot and you cut the tyre. We weren’t fast on the hard tyre, we tried to do the opposite strategy and go long hoping for a safety car in the middle window, which didn’t happen. We had to close the gap on the hard compound and then I got a puncture at the end. We’ve had good pace in the last few races and we’re in a good position with the car. We have an update coming up in Austin and we have all the races to look forward to for the rest of the season.”