Despite a relatively good start to the season, the Haas F1 team finished very last in the constructors’ championship. According to Nico Hulkenberg, the performance of the VF-23 at the beginning of the season was obscured by the problems experienced by the competition.
“It was clearly a process, but the signals were already there very early in the season,” Hulkenberg looks back on the season. “But we got away with it at the beginning of the season because the other teams had more problems.”
“Once they got their house in order and they introduced some upgrades, that’s when we paid the price.”
“The second half or the last part of the season was very tough. I think there was only one chance for me to score one or two points and that was in Singapore. We missed that opportunity due to a wrong strategic decision.”
“Besides that, we never really had the speed. Even when many cars dropped out, we were far away from the points. That is obviously not great, we will have to do better in that area next year.”