Nico Hülkenberg fought long and hard for points at Spa, but a late strategy decision proved costly: Why Sauber stopped again
Nico Hülkenberg was close to securing a World Championship point for Sauber at the Belgian Grand Prix – but in the end, he only managed twelfth place. The turning point: a second pit stop twelve laps before the end, which in retrospect proved to be a strategic error.
“In a way, I was forced to do it,” Hülkenberg explained after the race, explaining why he didn’t go for the one-stop strategy. “My front tires were degrading badly, I had a lot of understeer and had to lock up the front wheel more and more often. I don’t think I could have kept ahead of Pierre [Gasly] and the group.”
Looking at the lap times before the second stop, there was a clear downward trend. On lap 26, the German drove his fastest lap of the first medium stint with a 1:47.656. Shortly before his tire change on lap 31, he was almost a second slower. Teammate Gabriel Bortoleto, on the other hand, was setting fast lap times in the low 1:47s at that point.
Sauber had opted for a higher downforce setup, which, according to Hülkenberg, proved to be a disadvantage in dry conditions against direct competitors such as Alpine. “Pierre was running on low downforce. As soon as he got into my slipstream, we would have been an easy target,” he said.
The hope was for a late attack after the tire change, but that came to nothing, not least because Gasly, with his superior top speed, led a DRS train with Oliver Bearman and Yuki Tsunoda. “You think maybe the DRS train will break up at some point and you can make a move. But that didn’t happen,“ Hülkenberg admits.
First stop pushes Hülkenberg forward
The race had started well. After the start was delayed for a long time due to poor visibility – ”a mood killer,” as Hülkenberg calls it – Sauber made the right strategic decisions. On lap 11, the German switched early from intermediates to slicks – the second driver in the field after Lewis Hamilton. It paid off: Hülkenberg was then in ninth place, ahead of teammate Bortoleto.
But then the team requested a position swap. “Gabi was faster and had a better rhythm. We were close to Liam [Lawson] and wanted to attack him,“ explained Hülkenberg. ”I was struggling with the car anyway, so no problem, I let him pass, of course. For the good of the team.”
With the second stop on lap 32, however, the points target was practically lost. While the competition – including Alpine, Haas and Tsunoda in the second Red Bull – opted for a one-stop strategy, Hülkenberg couldn’t get out of traffic. “We thought we still had a chance. But then you’re stuck in the DRS train and there’s nothing you can do.” Gasly secured tenth place – Hülkenberg was only twelfth.
“Of course it’s bitter when you see how close you were,” he said. Nevertheless, he does not fundamentally regret the late pit stop. “I really believe that I wouldn’t have made it through with the first set of slicks.” The critical condition of the tires was already evident from the car’s behavior: “I kept braking too hard, which is not a good sign. We had to try something.“
Wheatley: Why the strategy didn’t work
The weather and the late start also had an impact on Hülkenberg’s race weekend. ”Waiting is never ideal, it takes the momentum out of the race. But safety comes first – with Eau Rouge and the blind corners, you can’t take any risks.“
At least the driving itself was ”definitely fun,“ he said: ”Once we were out there, the track was okay. Standing water wasn’t a big problem, but visibility was still an issue – especially on the straights.”
Sauber team boss Jonathan Wheatley summed it up: “Nico’s race proved more difficult. When his pace dropped in the second half of the race, it became clear that the original one-stop strategy would put him at risk, so we decided to bring him in for a second pit stop. Unfortunately, he rejoined the track behind Ocon, which meant he lost time in traffic and we couldn’t make the most of the strategy as planned.”