Nico Hulkenberg has described how he decided to “fight” Sergio Perez at the Austrian Formula 1 Grand Prix – for his best result since 2019. Hulkenberg finished sixth at the Red Bull Ring, half a second faster than Perez, who was suffering significant damage to his Red Bull.

Sixth place is the German’s best result in a race since he took fifth for Renault at the 2019 Italian Formula 1 Grand Prix, with Kevin Magnussen’s eighth place there. meaning 12 points is Haas’ best team result in two years – since Mick Schumacher and Magnussen also finished six-eight in 2022. Hulkenberg was promoted from seventh place following the late retirement of Lando Norris and felt it was important that the team was able to “unstuck the situation”.

“Eight points and 12 points in total [for the team], obviously very good,” Hulkenberg told the media. “We didn’t expect that and of course, having two top cars out together helps so we had to be there to solve the problem, and we worked with both cars. “It was a very tense race, especially in the final stages with Checo – I didn’t expect to be able to keep him behind for so long. “I said to myself, ‘Hopefully I can damage his tires a bit’ and that’s exactly what happened – and with good straight line speed I managed to keep the lead. “The race was extremely tense, and in the end, we had to try to survive, try to keep the lead, but it was a good, tough and fair race.”