F1 News: Hulkenberg And Magnussen To Receive Different Haas Packages For Las Vegas GP

The split decision was made in accordance with driver preferences.

The Haas team is adopting different approaches for Nico Hulkenberg and Kevin Magnussen's cars during the Las Vegas GP, with the former opting for the older aero package while the latter opted for the latest spec. 

The split car decision comes not with the motive of gathering analytical data but is simply the choice the drivers made themselves. The American team gained a significant boost in performance after the upgrade package it received at the United States Grand Prix last month.

Despite the improvements, the cars continue to be held back by the tires in the Grand Prix, which is causing the drivers to drop down the order. Speaking on the decision to run two different versions of the car in Las Vegas, team principal Guenther Steiner said:

“The main drive behind this was Nico feels that for him the old spec suits him better, and Kevin is the opposite.

“We’ve opted to give them what they want, we have two races to go and nothing to lose, so we’ve tried to do what we can.

“We could discuss gathering data, but we’ve got enough data, it’s a decision based on what each driver likes more than anything else. It puts them in a comfortable position so that they’re as happy as they can be with the car they get.”

Speaking on the low-temperature challenges that lay ahead in the midnight street race, he added:

“The low temperatures are a challenge, as everyone knows you need to keep the tires higher than the minimum temperature, which is higher than five degrees, so we always need to keep them a bit warmer, but it depends also a lot on the asphalt.

“It’s a combination of temperature and roughness of asphalt, but I don’t think degradation can get much worse for us than in Brazil. On Thursday, during practice, we’ll get to know the surface, the track, the temperature and then we’ll know more.”

For 2024, Steiner added that the sliding problem caused by overheating of the tire surface needs to be solved. He said:

"We're learning what doesn't work, but I think we need to fix it.

“We know what we need on the aero. But we still need to make it, obviously.

“We are going in the right direction I hope in the wind tunnel. And for next year, we will cure this, we'll learn about the cooling of the rims, and all that stuff.

“At the moment, we don't have a big issue any more with the carcass temperature, it's just the sliding, the surface overheating now.

“You learn bit-by-bit, but we cannot keep on learning, we need to give some results, to be honest. At least we’re doing something, because the other car just didn't work."