There was promising news for Haas after practice on Thursday, with Hulkenberg ending the day a highly respectable seventh fastest and narrowly behind world champion Max Verstappen.
Addressing the media before the Bahrain Grand Prix, the German discussed Haas’ work over the course of pre-season testing.
"We've seen improvements, the car also feels better,” said Hulkenberg. “Then if you look at the data and the lap times, the consistency was there (in comparison) to last year.
"It's early days, we'll learn much more after Saturday evening because race conditions can be more tough and different, so that's obviously going to be the real test.
"But as I say we're optimistic and positive that we've made a step forward, but it's a long challenging year ahead of us, where we want to keep improving."
Saturday will be the true test of any progress that Haas have made in making their car more competitive over the course of more than ten laps.