From contract to crash: Nico Hulkenberg damages updated Haas front wing

Thomas Maher 2023年8月25日29点

Haas driver Nico Hulkenberg walks away from his crashed Haas in FP1 for the Dutch Grand Prix

Haas driver Nico Hulkenberg brought out the red flags in the first practice session for the Dutch Grand Prix, after crashing his car in the final sector.

With just 20 minutes left in the first practice session at the Zandvoort circuit in the Netherlands, Hulkenberg was the first driver of the weekend to make a glaring error as the drivers returned to action after a four-week summer break.

将他的方式through the final sector of the lap, Hulkenberg lost control of his car and ended up against the barriers through the final corner.

Nico Hulkenberg brings out the red flags

Approaching the long right-hander named Arie Luyendykbocht, Hulkenberg lost control of the rear of his VF-23 and ended up spinning off into the gravel – coming to rest gently against the barrier.

While the damage to the car was minimal, there was no extricating himself from the gravel, and the red flags were immediately shown – scuppering a particularly quick lap from Lewis Hamilton as the Mercedes driver looked set to go quickest of all.

Walking away from his incident, Hulkenberg’s weekend has taken a turn for the worse after having a celebratory day on Thursday as he and Kevin Magnussen were both confirmed as staying with the team for 2024.

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Nico Hulkenberg damages Haas new-spec front wing

Haas team boss Guenther Steiner was less than impressed by the incident, revealing that Hulkenberg’s moment had damaged one of the very few updated front wings available to Haas this weekend.

“It looks like the front wing is damaged, the only problem is that this is the new front wing and we don’t have a lot of them!” he told Sky F1.

“Obviously, the one thing that shouldn’t be damaged is the front wing, and it is. We’ll have to see if we can repair it or not, but I think the chances are low to repair it. But, otherwise, we got away pretty easy.”

“We’ve got another one but only one. So we need to decide if we risk it or not to put it on this afternoon or if we keep it for tomorrow. So I think we’ll decide after the session as we don’t know what is the best thing to do here.”