As for Hulkenberg, the German was another who could not make much progress through the field on Sunday. He was on the same medium-hard tyre strategy as the majority of the field, and came home behind the Alpine of Doohan.
“The car didn’t feel too bad today, and I would have liked the chance to explore its full potential a bit more,” Hulkenberg said afterwards. “But Suzuka is a track where overtaking is notoriously difficult, and that really defined the race.
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“I spent most of the time in traffic, which made it hard to make any real progress and ultimately turned it into a fairly uneventful race. That’s obviously a bit frustrating.
“We know there’s still work to do – both in terms of overall pace and car characteristics – and today’s race underlined that once again. It‘s still early in the season and we continue to learn with every race weekend.”
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