Hulkenberg: The relationship with the car is already somewhat better

      In the middle of the season the qualifying figures of Nico Hülkenberg, the most experienced professional, were clearly worse than those of Gabriel Bortoleto, who only made his Formula 1 debut this year. But over the last four rounds the 37-year-old German veteran has been ahead of his young Sauber teammate, although the score of their Saturday duels still favors the Brazilian — 10-11.

      At the start of the season Nico was also fairly comfortably ahead of Bortoleto, which was natural, since Gabriel was only gaining experience and not all circuits were familiar to him. But then he gradually improved, while Nico, on the contrary, increasingly yielded to his teammate. And after the Italian round Bortoleto led the tally, which was already 11-6.

      But now the picture has changed again, and when Hülkenberg was asked to explain this he replied: “I just stopped getting distracted by secondary things, tried to focus on the main things, and that has paid off. I suppose sometimes you feel that you’re gradually building momentum, that there’s a positive dynamic in your performances, and sometimes that doesn’t happen. Obviously, the summer was exactly such a tougher period. But we simply kept digging in, kept working and gradually achieved improvements.”

      In the sprint in Austin Nico started from the second row, but he was unlucky — he was involved in an incident at the first corner after the start, lost a lot of positions and finished near the back. However, the next day he scored points for eighth place in the United States Grand Prix, and a week ago in São Paulo he finished ninth.

      “Probably the feel behind the wheel and my overall relationship with the car are somewhat better than they were in the summer. And the improvement in qualifying results is simply a consequence of that,” he added.