Hülkenberg: “Renault has a powerful package”

Nico Hulkenberg distinguished himself by winning 6 points in Melbourne (Australia), but the winner of the 24 Hours of Le Mans 2015 suffered from the lack of reliability of Renault by retiring in the final laps of the Bahrain GP (at the same time as his teammate Daniel Ricciardo) while he was playing in the Top 10.

“We have obviously worked on reliability in order to prevent such scenarios from happening again. I will have my second engine for the Chinese GP. Renault has remade its MGU-K to make it more solid”, said the Renault driver in the Shanghai paddock which is hosting the 1000th GP of the F1.

Nico Hülkenberg remains confident about the potential of his R.S.19 even if the gap with the top teams still seems too great while the Losange only occupies 7th place in the Manufacturers' championship with its points recorded in Australia.

“We couldn’t exploit the car’s potential in qualifying. Our pace was good in Bahrain as we were able to overtake a number of cars and it would be interesting to see this phenomenon repeated in China this weekend. The gap over the top teams remains significant, particularly against Ferrari, and it will be difficult to fill it quickly but Renault has a powerful package”he said.

In any case, the German does not seem perturbed by the new aerodynamics of the single-seaters which have more imposing wings. This is an advantage compared to his teammate Daniel Ricciardo who has yet to find his feet in his new team.

“The new F1 cars don't really change with the rule change. It's quite similar to last year, even if a few things are changing on the aero front., he commented. I'm not surprised that Daniel needs time to get used to his new mount. I didn't arrive at Renault at the same time, things were different. It’s normal that he needs to get his bearings. »