Nico Hülkenberg (Audi) hopes for a performance boost from the upgrade

In its first Formula 1 season with its own engine and competing under the Audi name, Audi currently sits in 8th place in the Constructors’ Championship. However, the battle in the midfield is tight; most recently, it has been Alpine in particular that has been putting pressure on Audi. Fittingly, the German team now has a comprehensive upgrade package lined up for the race in Baku.

What does German driver Nico Hülkenberg hope to gain from this package and the weekend? The seasoned racer says: “It’s an upgrade, so naturally we hope it will give us a bit more power and an advantage. But it’s also about coordination with the factory, about development, about understanding and making progress for the future. We’ll get the answer to that this weekend, but I think that in Kuala Lumpur and Singapore, too, we’ll continue to learn more with each upgrade and deepen our understanding of it.” After Baku, the next races are in Malaysia (the rescheduled Bahrain Grand Prix) and then in Singapore. Hülkenberg: “I think it should boost performance – exactly by how much, we’ll only find out once we get into the race.”

The package had been planned for a long time

Hülkenberg goes on to explain the package: “It was always part of our plan to bring it here. That was the original plan. So it has nothing to do with recent events.” That is, the situation on the grid. “That’s simply how we’d envisaged and planned it. And, of course, the process – from development through to approval, production, logistics and so on – is quite complex.” The package is therefore anything but a rushed job.

This is the first time that Formula 1 will race in Azerbaijan under the completely new regulations for the new season, meaning new active aerodynamics as well as the new engines and the much-discussed energy recovery system. Consequently, entering the corners after the long straights is likely to feel a little different this year compared with previous years.

Nico Hülkenberg isn’t particularly worried, though: “I don’t think it feels strange or anything like that. It was the same at Monza, and exactly the same at Spa – on all these circuits with their very long straights and this track layout. That’s just how it is. At this stage of the year, we already know how it works. We’ve got used to it, so to speak.” The Formula 1 drivers have already had 14 race weekends, several of them on high-speed circuits, to get used to it. Hülki predicts: “It will, of course, be slower than last year as you approach the first corner, but that’s just the way it is.”

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