Hulkenberg, who has not raced for Barcelona at Renault since 2019, finished his second practice session on Friday afternoon behind Fernando Alonso and Red Bull pacesetter Max Verstappen.

The returning German still hadn’t completed the final corner at 170 mph, and he ended up clocking 0.27 seconds in 1 meter 14.177 seconds. The next 12 cars finished 15th behind his teammate Kevin Magnussen by 0.536 seconds.

Hulkenberg, who was only 18th in FP1, believes his performances in FP2 are “real”, although he expects other teams to find their pace in Saturday’s game.

He therefore called on his team to “remain calm and realistic” despite the exciting result.

Insight: What we learned from Friday’s practice for the F1 2023 Spanish GP

Hülkenberg said: “I think it looks real, but I guess the others didn’t play well, they didn’t play well.

“In particular, there are a lot of top cars and I think they’ll find something or pick it up overnight. We’ve got to be calm and realistic.”

Hulkenberg, who is yet to reach the podium in F1, believes Haas is better suited to Barcelona’s permanent circuit, having finished only 17th in Monaco last time around (with a 10-second penalty for a pit stop error), despite Use a car with an upgraded front wing in the Principality.

He continued: “For me it was important to have a good feeling in the car, a good rhythm.

“I managed to find it today and that’s the most important thing for me and for the driver.

Nico Hulkenberg, Haas

Photography: Andy Horn / motorsport pictures

“Obviously, I hope to have an equally good day tomorrow. Just squeezing out what we have.

“But it’s going to get tense again. Even with the Q3 battle, if you see it in midfield, there are still four or five teams and we’re all fighting over the same tarmac.

“It’s going to be a tough, tough battle again… Naturally here too, the car is just in a happier place. It immediately makes me feel better than a week ago in Monaco.”

He added: “It feels good, especially that lap. The new padding gives you more grip on the lap.

“Especially with FP2, I think we’ve gained some performance. In FP1, it’s not quite there yet.”

Meanwhile, Magnussen, who was seventh in FP1, believes a late set-up tweak affected his speed.

The race in Barcelona is significant because Pirelli raced on its 2024 tires just once before the FIA ​​made a final decision on whether to go ahead with the original race plan – after the British Grand Prix at Silverstone, where Red Bull took part. There is no blanket for the game next season.

Current rules say the blankets will remain in place until 2024, and a decision on whether to change and abandon them must be made by July 31.

Several drivers who tested early prototypes of the blanketless tires in winter were not happy with them, with Lewis Hamilton calling them “dangerous”.

However, testing after the Bahrain Grand Prix showed more promise and Pirelli believes next week’s race in Spain will represent a further step.

An early design of the future structure will be used for this year’s British Grand Prix and was tested by drivers in Barcelona on Friday.

The FIA ​​has approved the carpetless all-wet tyres, which were first used by Sergio Perez and the Haas drivers during the Monaco Grand Prix.

“It’s very important for us,” Pirelli’s chief engineer Simone Berra told Autosport of the Barcelona race.

“We’re testing most of the compounds, we have a lot of variants. We’re trying to test different structures to move forward because the goal is to have no blankets in 2024.

“So we need a structure that obviously needs to have good integrity, a high level of integrity, but needs to work really well at the start of the run when the pressure is lower and help the compound get to temperature and become in the operating range .

“So we’re continuing to develop new structures. Then we’ll start looking at new families of compounds that don’t use blankets. So I think that’s going to be a good test for us.

“The Barcelona we know is representative because we have high-speed sections. It’s a normal track, a more complete track compared to Bahrain when we tested at the beginning of the season.”

While not entirely representative, Bella believes the Bahrain test has helped point Pirelli in the right direction, with the tires due to run in Spain next week meeting the requirements.

Carlos Sainz, Ferrari SF-23, Charles Leclerc, Ferrari SF-23

Photography: Andy Horn / motorsport pictures

“I think we’ve gotten some interesting stuff,” he said. “Obviously Bahrain is not really important for all circuits because you have a high temperature on the track and you have high traction demands and braking demands.

“So we need to test the new structure on different tracks where you have high lateral loads, higher severity and maybe cooler temperatures compared to Bahrain, just to see where we’re going in a good direction effort.

“When we were testing in Bahrain, we had some good options out of the box. But there were still some things that needed to be fine-tuned, finalized, and this was a new proposal.

“So that’s what the test is for. We’re trying to develop a structure that helps generate the temperature on the tyre, so that the compound can work. That means the structure is less stiff and can increase stiffness as pressure increases .”

Bella believes Pirelli will finally get the FIA’s approval to ditch blankets in 2024.

The test will also see the Mercedes track debut of the team’s reserve driver Mick Schumacher, who will tackle the W14 on Wednesday after George Russell entered the race the previous day.