{"id":222647,"date":"2025-10-18T11:55:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-18T11:55:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/222647\/"},"modified":"2025-10-18T11:55:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-18T11:55:09","slug":"nico-hulkenberg-feared-austin-pace-was-too-good-to-be-true-before-bagging-p4-in-sprint-qualifying","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/222647\/","title":{"rendered":"Nico Hulkenberg feared Austin pace was \u2018too good to be true\u2019 before bagging P4 in Sprint Qualifying"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"typography-module_body-s-regular__ul7F5 typography-module_md_body-m-regular__d9VRg typography-module_lg_body-l-regular__dPa5z\">\u201cSatisfied, happy as you might imagine,\u201d said Hulkenberg. \u201cObviously, in FP1 things were looking good already, but it kind of looked too good to be true, so we weren\u2019t sure if that was the real deal or what other people were up to with their programme. But yeah, we were able to continue that trend.<\/p>\n<p class=\"typography-module_body-s-regular__ul7F5 typography-module_md_body-m-regular__d9VRg typography-module_lg_body-l-regular__dPa5z\">\u201cThe car felt quite alright. Obviously, it is always your own feeling and perception maybe that doesn\u2019t always match with the lap times say, but the lap times and the stopwatch doesn\u2019t lie, and that looked pretty good all day. So happy, will take that forward and hopefully we can hang onto it this weekend.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"typography-module_body-s-regular__ul7F5 typography-module_md_body-m-regular__d9VRg typography-module_lg_body-l-regular__dPa5z\">Claiming that Sauber has \u201chit the sweet spot\u201d with its set up, Hulkenberg conceded it will be \u201cdifficult\u201d to keep the traditional front runners behind in the Sprint.<\/p>\n<p class=\"typography-module_body-s-regular__ul7F5 typography-module_md_body-m-regular__d9VRg typography-module_lg_body-l-regular__dPa5z\">He added: \u201cOkay, it is not a full race but even in a Sprint, a bunch of really quick cars with usually a bit of better tyre deg numbers but obviously we will fight, see what we can hang onto and hopefully something rewarding.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"typography-module_body-s-regular__ul7F5 typography-module_md_body-m-regular__d9VRg typography-module_lg_body-l-regular__dPa5z\">The positivity in the Sauber garage was muted somewhat by the troubles of <a class=\"text-brand-hot-red underline decoration-1 hover:decoration-[3px]\" data-f1rd-a7s-click=\"rich_text_atom_click\" data-f1rd-a7s-context=\"eyJhY3Rpb25UeXBlIjoiR2FicmllbCBCb3J0b2xldG9fbGlua19jbGlja2VkIiwiY2xpY2tUZXh0Ijp0cnVlLCJwYXRoIjoiaHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZm9ybXVsYTEuY29tL2VuL2RyaXZlcnMvZ2FicmllbC1ib3J0b2xldG8iLCJwYXRoVHlwZSI6ImludGVybmFsIn0=\" href=\"https:\/\/www.formula1.com\/en\/drivers\/gabriel-bortoleto\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Gabriel Bortoleto<\/a>, however, who, after seeing his first effort in SQ1 deleted for a track limits violation, failed to reach the line to start his second attempt before the chequered flag was shown. As a result, he will line up last on the Sprint grid.<\/p>\n<p class=\"typography-module_body-s-regular__ul7F5 typography-module_md_body-m-regular__d9VRg typography-module_lg_body-l-regular__dPa5z\">\u201cThe first lap was track limits, but it was not a good enough lap anyway,\u201d said the Brazilian. \u201cThen the second lap, we just left the garage too late and didn\u2019t even make it, so there\u2019s nothing to say. I did only one lap, and it was track limits.<\/p>\n<p class=\"typography-module_body-s-regular__ul7F5 typography-module_md_body-m-regular__d9VRg typography-module_lg_body-l-regular__dPa5z\">\u201cThe car didn\u2019t feel too bad. It\u2019s a shame, because I think it was good. But we work for tomorrow, and tomorrow is the main quali.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cSatisfied, happy as you might imagine,\u201d said Hulkenberg. \u201cObviously, in FP1 things were looking good already, but it&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":222648,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-222647","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-motosport","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-motor","11":"tag-motor-sports","12":"tag-motosport","13":"tag-motosports","14":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222647","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=222647"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222647\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/222648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=222647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=222647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=222647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}