Hulkenberg: P6 two times in a row, unexpected but deserved

Hulkenberg has been delivering a strong final season with Haas so far, scoring points on five occasions in the first 12 race, but the highlight has to be his back to back six places in Silverstone and Spielberg.

While Kevin Magnussen was tasked by Haas in some races to blocked cars behind trying to catch Hulkenberg, that was simply down to the fact that the latter has put himself higher up on the grid that his teammate.

The German has been especially good in qualifying this year, making Q3 six times and in last weekend's British GP, he even managed to two Ferraris in qualifying.

Speaking to the media last Sunday in Silverstone - including GrandPrix247 - the Hulk was asked how he felt after his result

"Good! Good, happy," he responded. "Obviously nice rewarding feeling to get eight points again, P6 two times in a row. Unexpected, but deserved.

"We worked for it. We stayed clean, no mistakes, good strategy," Hulkenberg added, reflecting a challenging race for both teams and drivers, due to mixed classic British weather.

"So, very good. The best of all, though, is you know, the performance that we've had, the update really, you know, did something to the car. And I genuinely think we're in the fight for fifth fastest team now with, you know, sometimes Aston, sometimes Alpine, sometimes some others maybe.

"But we're there . We have been pretty consistent this season. We can hang on to that," he claimed.

Indeed, Haas delivered an upgrade package at Silverstone which seemed to work out of the box, while Ferrari, the team who sells them power units and some car component had to revert to an older spec car after their latest upgrade slowed them down.

Asked what the updates improved in the VF24, Hulkenberg explained: "It's improved our high speed and medium speed performance.

"High speed was kind of an issue all this year so far, to the tracks that we've been to. And this weekend, it seemed that, you know, we kind of closed that gap to some extent to... especially to the other midfield teams, and also to the top teams to some extent."

Ferrari are not the only team to struggle with new upgrades as Aston Martin and VCARB as well brought upgrades recently but failed to make them work.

Why was that not the case with Haas? Hulkenberg said: "They [Haas] have just done a good job! And... they've worked well, they've worked clean.

"And every time when, you know, we put stuff on the car, it kind of works to expectation and the correlation is also not bad. So obviously, we've made some changes to our technical department and aero department last year and end of last year.

"You know, the result is this now that it kind of works better and more efficiently, it seems," the 36-year-old, who is joining Sauber aka Audi in 2025, concluded.

Haas are currently seventh in the 2024 Formula 1 Constructors' Championship with 27 points, four less than VCARB in sixth. Alpine are eighth with nine points.