HulKENberg? Haas driver laughs off his Barbie movie look

BUDAPEST : Haas Formula One driver Nico Hulkenberg joked about his Barbie movie vibe after turning up at the Hungarian Grand Prix on Thursday with a striking dyed bleach blond look.

"Fascinating what a bit of dyed hair can do," said the German after the first question he faced at a Hungaroring press conference was whether his haircut had something to do with a bet.

"No, not a bet... you know, that Barbie movie came out and I thought a bit of extra PR for me would be pretty handy this time of the season," he said.

"Actually, no, I wasn't aware about it. I didn't really play with Barbie and Ken when I was a child. So I just ran into this one and bad timing I guess."

More seriously, Hulkenberg expected another tough weekend for his U.S.-owned team despite some minor upgrades to the car's floor.

"Hopefully they can push us along a little bit but I expect the very tight field again so every session matters, every lap matters," he said.

"I think qualifying, for us, with the new rules of how we have to run the tyres, with the hard in Q1 (the first phase), is probably not favourable for us. So an extra challenge there but we'll just take it on."

The 11th round of the season will be the season's first 'Alternative Tyre Allocation' (ATA) event with specific compounds mandated for each phase of qualifying rather than a free choice.

That means hard for the first phase, mediums for the second and softs for the final top 10 shootout.

Haas are eighth overall after 10 races with Hulkenberg scoring nine of their 11 points to date.