When the top five teams in the 2023 constructors championship – Red Bull, Mercedes, Ferrari, McLaren and Aston Martin – filled the 10 points-paying positions in the opening round of the 2024 season, the remaining five teams were faced a difficult reality.
Clearly, as long as there were no mishaps or mechanical problems for the top teams over a grand prix, the chances of the rest of the field scoring points was almost nil.
But when Lance Stroll crashed his Aston Martin on lap six of the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, an opportunity opened up for Alpine, Williams, RB, Sauber or Haas to pick up the pieces and take their first point of the season.
In the end, Haas managed to do just that. They achieved it through and excellent example of team work between the strategists on the pit wall and drivers Nico Hulkenberg and Kevin Magnussen. Here’s how they did it.
Magnussen and Hulkenberg’s radio messages
After both reached Q2 in Friday’s qualifying session, Magnussen secured 13th place on the grid while a fuel system failure forced Hulkenberg to stop on the track, leaving him in 15th. At the start, Haas followed the vast majority of the field by fitting medium tyres on both cars to prepare to run a typical one-stop strategy around the low degradation Jeddah circuit.
The pair each gained a place on the opening lap: Magnussen passed Alexander Albon and Hulkenberg got ahead of Daniel Ricciardo. Then on lap six, the Haas drivers rounded turn 22 to see the Aston Martin in the barriers.
| Lap: 6/50 MAG: 1’36.027, HUL: 1’36.398 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Hulkenberg | There was a crash. Turn 22. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Gannon | Yeah, copy that. Don’t know why there’s no flag. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Lap: 7/50 MAG: 2’11.564, HUL: 2’09.724 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Slade | No sign of Safety Car at the moment. We’ve got a yellow flag from turn 20. | Gannon | Safety Car. Safety Car. Get positive on the delta time and, for now, stay out. Positive on Delta time. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Slade | Safety Car. Safety Car. Stay positive on your delta. Mode ‘slow’, please. Mode ‘slow’. How is the balance, Kev? | Gannon | Nico, I need multi-function B9 to position seven, multi-function B9 to position seven and we are staying out. It’s double yellow, turns 20, through 23. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Magnussen | It’s pretty good. Little bit of understeer, but. I think we could go up by two or something, just a little bit. | Hulkenberg | Check if that should be good now. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Slade | Copy. Just keep as close as you can to zero on your delta. | Gannon | That’s correct. All good. Okay, Nico. So we’re staying out…. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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