Hulkenberg had a frustrating time in Italy
Nico Hulkenberg insists that his incidents with RB drivers Daniel Ricciardo and Yuki Tsunoda in the early laps at Monza were “just normal racing”.
The German says that he’s not battling the Italian cars harder than anyone else, despite Haas and RB being in a close fight for sixth place in the World Championship.
Haas currently lags behind its rival by just six points, with Kevin Magnussen having logged a valuable 10th place at Monza.
Hulkenberg lost ground on the first lap after a clash with Ricciardo, and while trying to recover he had contact at Turn 1 with Tsunoda, putting the Japanese driver out of the race and damaging his own front wing.
The German received a 10-second penalty and two points on his licence for causing a collision, and eventually finished 17th.
“I feel like we lost everything already on lap one,” said Hulkenberg when asked about his difficult race by this writer.
“First chicane was somehow boxed in, but in the wrong spot, and then lost out. And then I got a good strong tow off Danny. So I went next to him on the outside, but he swept across quite a lot, and just didn’t leave quite enough room.
“So we made contact, it put me in the dirt, anti-stall kicked in in fourth gear. So until I had that sorted out, I lost another three or four positions. And I must have been P16/17 after lap one, obviously pretty poor and bad.
“It was always going to be difficult. And the Yuki incident and front wing change and all the rest of it did the rest.”
Hulkenberg denied that there was any red mist involved in the Tsunoda contact: “No, he probably was on the radio, knowing him!
“Of course, I didn’t stop it how I wanted to. But I think he saw me coming as well with quite some speed, and still he decided to turn in. I think he could have saved himself, but he chose not to.”
Asked if he races the RB cars harder than others given the points situation Hulkenberg was adamant that that isn’t the case.
“No, I think that’s not it,” he said. “Just normal racing. We were five or six cars in a row there, bunched up, and obviously I lost out a lot, I wanted to just make ground up again, and just made contact there. But nothing to do with the championship.”
He added: “The high-speed bouncing was pretty bad in the race. Maybe there was some further damage on the car from that contact with Yuki, on the floor. We need to look into it.”