Nico Hülkenberg explains his retirement in Barcelona following a battle with Liam Lawson – a pebble is said to have triggered the safety system
Nico Hülkenberg described the unusual circumstances surrounding the end of his race following his retirement from the Barcelona Grand Prix. The German had been involved in a battle with Liam Lawson before his car suddenly shut down completely.
When asked what exactly led to the retirement, Hülkenberg explained: “Liam drove a wheel through the gravel trap in Turn 12 and kicked up quite a bit of gravel as a result. The cars have a safety pull on the left side of the air intake—for the marshals, in a worst-case scenario. And some kind of stone basically pulled that thing, completely shutting down the car in one fell swoop.”
A scheduled pit stop was obviously not the reason Hülkenberg headed for the pits so early in the race. The German made that clear in hindsight: “No, no. The car was dead. I just rolled into the pit lane. There was nothing left. It completely shut down.”
Bizarre malfunction causes frustration
Hülkenberg is surprised by the nature of the malfunction and describes it as one of the most unusual breakdowns of his career so far: “Yeah, it hasn’t happened to me yet in, I don’t know, the 16 years I’ve been here. Pretty bizarre and unusual. Very unfortunate and strange timing.”
The race had already been difficult up to that point. Hülkenberg was involved in close battles and also faced investigations by race control. Additionally, he lost time in traffic behind Lawson and complained of increasing tire wear.
“I think we had significantly more pace,” he says in retrospect. “But when you’re stuck behind a car here—in my case, behind Liam for the entire stint until the pit stop—it’s very difficult. As soon as you get closer, it puts extreme strain on the tires, and it creates a kind of downward spiral.”
Bittersweet Barcelona Grand Prix
The technical issue denied the Audi driver any chance of scoring points. Nevertheless, Hülkenberg remained convinced that the car is a competitive package: “Yes, sure, I think you can say that. Although I had hoped for a bit more today. But it’s always hard to get much done here while stuck behind another car because it really takes a toll on the tires.“
Hülkenberg also clearly criticized Lawson’s overtaking behavior in direct duels: ”He moved a few times in the braking zone. He was pretty much at the limit there.”
The Audi driver also wasn’t really satisfied with the strategy chosen by the team: “But still, one or two things happened during the race—including strategically—that we need to look at, though I think we could have handled things better and helped out. But in the end, we didn’t manage to take anything away from the weekend again, unfortunately.”
So, after a promising opening weekend in Barcelona, Hülkenberg is left with the realization that it was an unlucky race, in which a potential points finish was ruined by an unusual technical defect.
