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When Nico Hulkenberg gets back aboard “his” Racing Point on Friday morning at Silverstone, he’ll be in a much more prepared state than one week ago when he only made it into the paddock a few minutes before first practice started.
Hulkenberg acquitted himself well but the crazy 24 hours or so that got him to the British Grand Prix after Sergio Perez tested positive for COVID-19 ended in fittingly crazy fashion when Hulkenberg didn’t even make the start of the race because a bolt sheared within the car’s internals and got stuck, preventing the engine from firing.
That was disappointing for a host of reasons, not least that Hulkenberg never got to take advantage of a shortcut that meant he looked set to make a real impact as a super-sub. But no matter, with Perez still sidelined after all, it just sets Hulkenberg up very well for the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix instead.
And “all that hard work will prove very useful for this weekend,” reckons team boss Otmar Szafnauer, because Hulkenberg has had extra time to address an area in which Lewis Hamilton said he “can’t even tell you how far behind” Hulkenberg is.
Hulkenberg’s rivals on the grid, including Hamilton, were full of praise for the job he was doing last weekend before it was prematurely ended. But they were also well-placed to point out the areas in which Hulkenberg was playing catch-up.
The lack of seat time was obvious. Then there was the physical aspect. But also, familiarity with the package he’d be driving and the team he’d be working with. Yes, he’d driven for Racing Point in its Force India guise (pictured above) but he raced for Renault from 2017 to 2019 – all three years of this era of higher-downforce F1 cars.
“Every car is different,” said Hulkenberg. “The seating position, the noises, every car has a different feel to it and coming in without any kind of preparation I was really getting thrown out there, I ran into the paddock 10 minutes before FP1, got changed, did the jump-out test then was straight out there, doing a usual Friday programme.
“This together with learning about the car, with high-fuel, low-fuel, different engine modes, everything I did, was the first time with this car. Adapting to it, and learning as fast as possible.
Racing Point wanted Hulkenberg because he knew the team of old, which would speed up his learning process. He was in the simulator on Friday morning while he waited for his COVID-19 test result.
But it was, at best, a few hours of work while the others on the grid had been preparing since their winter break ended – it wasn’t just three days of pre-season testing and three grand prix weekends Hulkenberg was playing catch-up to.
“The prep is a big part,” said six-time world champion Hamilton. “Your understanding of the car, that’s probably the biggest part.
“When you don’t know the car, you don’t know the tools you have or the simulations that the team uses.
“I can’t even tell you how far behind he is with that. But he is a great driver. If anyone can do it, it will be him, for sure.”
McLaren’s Lando Norris is no stranger to the education that comes with getting the most from an F1 car given he’s only in his second season. And he agreed with his compatriot that there were lots of little tests for Hulkenberg that wouldn’t be visible on the outside.
“Probably one of the hard things is getting used to the steering wheel and all the Mercedes tools effectively,” said Norris.
“I think that’s obviously very different to Renault and is something which is quite difficult to understand straight away with all the different dials and buttons and so on and all the different meanings that they have.
“The mental part of it will be quite a challenge for him. And I’m sure that’s why he did a lot of the simulator work, trying to understand them.”
“He did slip into it incredibly seamlessly. It was like he almost never left” :: Andrew Green
Norris’s McLaren team-mate Carlos Sainz Jr has first-hand experience of what it’s like adapting to a new environment, having shifted between three teams – including a move from Toro Rosso to Renault during the season in 2017.
“If he would have jumped into a Renault, it would have been easier,” reckoned Sainz.
“But having to learn a whole new steering wheel, having to learn a whole new car balance and how the car reacts to new tyres and to the wind and to different track conditions, is probably the biggest challenge from a technical and driver’s perspective.”
But there was no sign of Hulkenberg being slowed by any of this, beyond some light coaching from his engineer about switch positions and options during practice and getting slightly caught out in Q2 after initially running on mediums then changing to softs, and not improving as expected.
As it turned out, Hulkenberg had a shortcut – some fortunate consistency at Racing Point from its Force India days, and a sharp brain.
“We’re not aware of the procedures that went on at Renault but he’s got a good memory,” explained Racing Point technical director Andrew Green.
“And I think a lot of those procedures that he was used to when he was driving for us for quite a few seasons haven’t really changed. They might have evolved a bit but the general principles behind them are very similar.
“So, he did slip into it incredibly seamlessly. It was like he almost never left.
“Which is the reason why we wanted him in the car in the first place at such short notice.
“We wanted someone who we knew we could get the maximum out of it in a very short space of time.
“So, in that respect, it wasn’t that arduous for him. I think that the switch was relatively simple.”
Green admitted Hulkenberg was “a bit rusty” because the “biggest disadvantage” was not driving an F1 car for nine months but Racing Point did everything it could to help him maximise his advantage as the perfect super-sub for this team.
It made a conscious effort to reduce his workload, changing its run plans to avoid back-to-back set-up changes and comparisons, to allow Hulkenberg to focus on getting up to speed as quickly as possible. That explains why his Friday featured absolutely no messing around and why he was pretty damn fast from the very first run.
Green said “we just concentrated on the basics”, and that meant everything on Hulkenberg’s itinerary was about performance and preparation rather than data-gathering or evaluations for the team.
“We changed our plans completely after Thursday of how we were going to approach the weekend,” said Green.
“It was all about just doing the simple stuff, not doing experiments, and just making sure we don’t make too many mistakes, just get the basics right.
“I think we’ve just about come out of it and done that. We were a bit a bit racey at times. But I think that was our target.
“We definitely made an effort to focus on Sunday and a little less on Saturday. But I think from his perspective he fitted in really well.”
All of this will be boosted at the second attempt by an important few days of recovery and simulator preparation, which means whatever percentage Hulkenberg was operating at last weekend – and it was higher than most probably thought likely – will be even closer to the others this time around.
The 80 laps completed last week have also given Hulkenberg’s muscles, particularly in the neck, a big workout and a refresher.
“The physical preparation that you need nowadays to drive one of these cars around here in Silverstone in qualifying, it’s very, very impressive,” said Sainz.
“You need to have the neck and the whole body ready to face the G-forces that we are facing, the cars are incredibly fast, the changes of direction are crazy fast and your first weekend back in a car after nearly a year off – to jump into a Racing Point that is pretty quick, and around Silverstone, is a huge challenge for him for sure.
“I can tell you that his neck is going to be super sore, probably also the core, the glutes actually get very sore also in a Formula 1 car.”
“I could see after the first practice his neck was hanging to one side” :: Max Verstappen
Green said that Hulkenberg has kept himself “very fit” since last December although admitted he’s “probably not quite race fit”. And he’s not going to make up months of physical training in a few days but any reinforcement will help, as well some minor installation changes that help create a bit more comfort.
Completing last Sunday’s grand prix would have been a big help, as time in the car and the knowledge gained from it is invaluable.
But maybe it will prove to be a blessing in disguise. A couple of observers, including Max Verstappen, had clocked that Hulkenberg’s neck already looked like it was feeling the burn on Friday afternoon.
“I could see after the first practice his neck was hanging to one side,” said Verstappen.
“He has quite a long neck so that is also not nice to have in F1. I spoke to him about it back in the day when he was still in F1 full-time! He didn’t enjoy that.
“It’s tough, you can train as much as you want; the first time you go in an F1 car with these speeds, especially around here, you will be sore. You can train every day with your neck but the first time it’s always going to be sore.
“So I’m 100% sure when he woke up he felt it. But it doesn’t matter to him anyway, he’s happy to be here.
“And he should be here anyway because I think he still deserves his spot on the grid.”
Norris and Hamilton, a driver who has talked extensively in recent months about trying to reach a new level physically, had some sympathy for the physical challenge greeting Hulkenberg – but like Verstappen, they believe the good outweighs the bad.
“I’m sure it was a pretty tough challenge to come in and be in the Racing Point, be one of the quickest teams in the high-speed corners,” said Norris. “I kind of feel a bit sorry for him!
“But he’s in an extremely fast car, one that’s good enough for Q3, so I wish him all the best. It’s nice to have him back.”
Hamilton added: “It’s definitely not the best one to come to, your first practice, your first race, for the neck. Copse is flat out so it’s a pretty intense combination of corners.
“But he’s generally always been really in good shape. I saw him walking in, he looked like he never left.”
And, as Racing Point has testified, it seemed that way behind the wheel as well. A bruising experience in F1 normally means a difficult weekend but in Hulkenberg’s case it is probably just a literal description of his return to the cockpit.
With a fast-tracked learning process, strong underlying pace and a few more days to physically and technically prepare himself, Hulkenberg will probably take a few sore spots as the only painful obstacle ahead of his second chance.
