Nico Hülkenberg says racing Gods don’t want Audi to score after freak F1 Barcelona-Catalunya GP retirement, that even shocked Liam Lawson.
After the escape from investigation into leaving the track and gaining advantage situation in F1 Barcelona-Catalunya GP, Audi’s Hulkenberg found himself in the fight for points against Racing Bulls’ Lawson, with the likes of Alpine’s Franco Colapinto and others close by.
No penalty for start investigation in Barcelona-Catalunya GP
The German recalled the early moment in the race which was investigated, but he put it down as tight racing. “Charles, I think, at the start, yeah, Arvid did a big detour and came out, but he then gave it back,” said Hulkenberg in the print media pen.
“Yeah, it was tight, but…to avoid contact with it, I think it was Franco I had to go inside, tight wheel-to-wheel racing.”
Once he got through that, he was stuck behind Lawson train, who was trying to go slow due to high degradation, thereby saving tyres and a third pit stop.
Hülkenberg could stay on with him but the pace and nature of the circuit made it difficult to pass. He felt he was on the limit in his robust defence, after complaints on radio about movement under braking. The German thought he certainly had more pace to build a gap if he could pass Lawson.
Hülkenberg felt he had more pace than Lawson
“Yeah, absolutely, I think we had way more pace, but if you stuck behind the car here, which was Liam for me the entire race, until we stopped, it was pretty difficult,” continued Hülkenberg. “When you get close, it just immediately, yeah, takes a toll on your tyres.
“And it’s just, kind of a downward spiral from there, so… If we managed to get ahead of him, I think we could have had, yeah, quite a strong pace from there. [And] yeah, he did it [movement under braking] a few times. He was quite on the limit,” summed up Hülkenberg.
Unfortunately, the fight couldn’t go until the end. In his close pursuit, Lawson ran a bit wide on the exit of Turn 12. He kicked-up bit of gravel and to the German’s bad luck, one of the stone killed the kill switch at the side of roll hoop and his car shutdown immediately, to cause a freak retirement.
Freak incident catches Hülkenberg
“Yeah, he put a wheel in the gravel exit of 12, picked up a lot of gravel,” recalled Hülkenberg. “That gravel somehow, one stone pulled the emergency trigger on the left of the roll hoop. And it just killed the car, from then to now, just total switch-off, and game over
“No, no, no, [I was not coming into the pitlane], it was just, the car was dead, and then obviously I just coasted into the pit lane, and there was nothing left. It was, yeah, just a complete shutdown,” summed up Hülkenberg, who is yet to score a point in F1 2026 despite getting close multiple times.
Racing Gods not on side of Hülkenberg to score in Barcelona or F1 2026
He feels the racing Gods don’t want to help Hülkenberg score. In his long career, he never had such an unlucky failure. “I’ve never seen or heard about this, to be honest, in my career,” he said. “Very unlucky, strange, the timing of that.
“When you see what happened at the end, two cars dropping out, I don’t know, it’s somehow, it’s…the racing world doesn’t want us to score yet,” summed up Hülkenberg, as F1 rival Lawson was left shocked when he got to know of the incident.
Lawson left stunned by the news
The Kiwi was unaware of the gravel hit and was told by the journalist about the situation. He could only joke about it. “I didn’t [cause his retirement],” said Lawson initially. “Are you serious? No way. Oh that’s so unfortunate! I obviously I had no idea and if I could perfectly aim for something like that, it would be quite impressive but I had no idea, I just knew that he dropped out.”
