Hulkenberg says upgrades are ‘paying dividends’ for Kick Sauber as he scores for second race in a row

Nico Hulkenberg is starting to make a habit of scoring points, as the Kick Sauber driver came home eighth in Canada to add to his brilliant fifth last time out in Spain.

His recent run of results has lifted Kick Sauber from the bottom of the table in the Teams’ Championship, and they are now just eight points off P6 as the midfield pack tightens up once again.

For Sauber, it is further proof that their upgrade direction is the right one, with Hulkenberg able to use his updated car to good effect when fighting his midfield rivals. While he didn’t quite have the pace to catch the Ferraris, like in Barcelona, the German was still proud of a race that included some “fun” overtakes.

“Well two times in [the top 10 in] a row, that’s nice!,” Hulkenberg said after the race in Montreal. "Would be nice if we can continue the trend from here but obviously definitely some momentum on our side.

“A bit as I suspected in race trim the car comes alive a bit more, the update really paying dividends and just having better consistency and a better balance in the car so yeah quite pleasant, made some good gains.

“Franco [Colapinto] and Alex [Albon] were fighting in Turn 9 Lap 1 and I managed to capitalise on that and was a pretty clean race. A couple of overtakes to do, pretty fun racing and managing tyres basically.”

Hulkenberg’s race craft remains sharp, the German more than happy to pounce on that opening lap when his rivals tangled, before executing a one-stop strategy that saw him make his hard tyres last 51 laps.

While his drive lacked the showiness of his Barcelona race, where he overtook Lewis Hamilton’s Ferrari, it was his third score of the season and first in a race that didn’t feature variables like rain or mid-race Safety Cars.

As such, there are high hopes of more points at the coming races – regardless of the characteristics of the tracks in question. Hulkenberg was asked if he can keep scoring, and he was clear that he sees no reason why he won’t be featuring in the top 10 more often moving forward.

“We’ve had two very different tracks here and in Barcelona" he said. "On both we were competitive in the midfield so there’s no reason to think why not.”

Team Principal Jonathan Wheatley was also quick to praise Hulkenberg’s drive in Montreal, as the team’s one-stop strategy “proved to be spot on," calling the atmosphere within the squad "fantastic."