The Canadian Grand Prix presented some unique challenges for every driver with the weather playing havoc with each team’s plans.
In the end, Max Verstappen put in another exceptional performance to take his sixth victory of the season ahead of Lando Norris and George Russell.
However, there was one team who appeared to outthought all of their rivals at the start of Sunday’s race – Haas.
The American team looked to the heavens and decided that the intermediate tyre wouldn’t be enough.
Kevin Magnussen and Nico Hulkenberg surged through the pack and were both running in the points after several laps.
Speaking on The Race Podcast, journalist Edd Straw shared that Nico Hulkenberg was achieving all of this despite some problems with the aerodynamics of his car.
It was an issue he was dealing with throughout the weekend but was only one poorly timed pit stop away from another impressive points finish.
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Nico Hulkenberg suffering from ‘weird aero problems’ during the Canadian Grand Prix
There were 18 drivers tiptoeing around the track in Montreal at the start of the race with both Haas drivers slaloming around them at every given opportunity.
However, Haas didn’t get their strategy right and when Magnussen dove into the pits, the team weren’t ready to pit him onto the intermediate tyres.
The Dane lost any advantage he gained from starting on the right tyres but Haas then took Hulkenberg’s strategy to the other extreme.
They appeared to be waiting for the track to dry out enough to put Hulkenberg straight into dry tyres but that didn’t happen and Hulkenberg sunk down the standings as a result.
Retirements ahead of Hulkenberg during the race and the awful outright pace of Sauber meant that the German was less than a second away from scoring a point in Canada.
That was despite Hulkenberg having to deal with some technical issues throughout his time in Canada.
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Haas fail to capitalise on five retirements in Canada
Speaking about Haas’s bold strategy Straw said: “The funny thing was, they could have gained a little bit from [Kevin] Magnussen particularly doing that because he could have come out 12, maybe even 11th if they got the pit stop right.
“Haas just wasn’t very good and Nico Hulkenberg had problems all weekend.
“He had weird aero problems, ended up going to a high downforce rear wing, still reckoned he had aero problems in the race so it was just one of those weekends that never got started for him particularly, difficult one for them.”
Nico Hulkenberg is partway through his second season with Haas but already knows it will be his last.
The German who has 536 career F1 points was one of the first drivers confirmed for 2025 after securing a move to Sauber before they become Audi in 2026.
He’ll hope that a year of pain with F1’s weakest team is worth waiting for the sport’s newest works team the following team.
However, Haas have surprised many with their performances this season after team principal Ayao Komatsu attempted to lower expectations.
Despite Haas’s surprisingly strong start to the year, there’s still no guarantee that Kevin Magnussen will be retained despite Hulkenberg’s imminent departure.
Oliver Bearman is expected to join from Ferrari’s academy in 2025 and Esteban Ocon might be the man who lines up alongside him after being released by Alpine.
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