Nico Hulkenberg Shares His Piece Of Mind On Renault Reliability Issues

German driver Nico Hulkenberg isn’t too happy with his car’s reliability. For sure, Renault isn’t the lousiest machine on the grid- are they? Yet, they aren’t the best either as seen in the three races so far, including the contests at Australia, Bahrain, and China.

Thus far, the Cyril Abiteboul-led team have managed to score a decent 8 points and stand seventh on the grid. This means, they are tied with Alfa Romeo, who stand fifth, while the Enstone-based team are fourth on the grid.

This isn’t terrible, is it, particularly from the standpoint that the French racing team are currently in a year where race wins may be easily out of question? Yet, a question that most would love to get an answer to is whether the noted racing outfit is making the best of the opportunities that are available.

To that end, experienced driver Nico Hulkenberg– currently driving in his third season at the French racing team- has shared a few concerns.

Nico Hulkenberg, 31, who failed to finish at the 2019 Chinese Grand Prix, owing to a power-unit problem has made no bones about the fact that the team may not be making the most of its chances.

But is that right?

Perhaps, the observer who believes in distancing from reality, examining F1 merely from the perspective of speed (not reliability and car complexity) may not be happy to note the following views of Nico Hulkenberg:

We really have to get on top of these things, because we’re costing ourselves results, experience, and points.

“I think we know that we have homework to do on that side. We need fixes rather sooner than later.

“It happened a couple of laps before I stopped, but we couldn’t fix it, so the team asked me to park the car.

“I lost power and it didn’t go anywhere. It looks like it’s related to the MGU-K again, unfortunately. So it looks like we have more work to do there.”

To that end, Nico Hulkenberg’s concern seems valid and not out of context- does it?

Wondering why? Here’s a case in point.

Well, while in the three races held thus far, the driver who won Le Mans in his maiden attempt has been able to score only 6 points and stands tenth on the Drivers standing, his more exuberant and statistically successful teammate, Daniel Ricciardo hasn’t even managed to break into the top ten.

If that’s not down to the reliability issue then what is, one wonders?

In fact, the only points that Renault’s new recruit Ricciardo was able to score this season were at China, in F1’s 1000th Grand Prix, a huge moment for the sport. In the same race, however, Renault saw Ricciardo‘s fellow driver race-retire.

Ricciardo failed to score any points in the season opener at Australia, his home Grand Prix, where to make matters worse, he’s not held a memorable record. Moreover, at Bahrain, the ‘honeybadger’ didn’t score any points either. The latter was down to power loss in the Renault engine. To that end, it’s not hard to disagree with Hulkenberg’s assessment of a car that perhaps may not be giving the drivers the optimum result they expect.