Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsForce India

Hulkenberg had little warning of front wing failure

Nico Hulkenberg says there was little warning there was a front wing issue before it failed and caused a heavy crash in the Hungarian Grand Prix.

The Force India driver was running in the top ten when his front wing collapsed and folded under the car on the pit straight, leaving him heading straight in to the barriers at Turn 1. Hulkenberg says there had been no sign of any issue before the failure but he was left disappointed to miss out on a big haul of points.

“It’s a shame we lost the opportunity to get a great result," Hulkenberg said. "I didn’t have much warning that there was a problem with the front wing - there was a harsh vibration just before it broke and after that I was heading straight into the barriers. The final impact was not too bad because that part of the track is well protected and it absorbed the energy nicely.

"Up until the accident, things were looking very positive: I had made a great start and was racing with the Red Bulls, which shows the step forward we have made with the B-spec car."

Looking for positives, Hulkenberg says at least Force India has a long gap to look in to the reasons for its problems in Hungary, with Sergio Perez having suffered a suspension failure in FP1.

"The good news is that we have time over the next week to analyse what happened and get the solutions in place before the summer break. Reliability has been a real strength of ours this season so it’s unusual for us to have these issues and the team will do its homework before we arrive in Spa. I go into the summer break knowing that we are competitive and that we can have a strong second half of the season.”

REPORT: Vettel wins chaotic Hungarian Grand Prix from Kvyat

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.