Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsForce India

Hulkenberg apologises to Massa for Singapore collision

Nico Hulkenberg has accepted the blame for the accident between himself at Williams' Felipe Massa during last week's Singapore Grand Prix.

Hulkenberg came through turn 1 just as Massa was coming back out on the track after the first round of pit stops. The Force India driver used his greater momentum to try and get around the slower car but the pair ended up making contact.

"Obviously I looked at the video footage and I think I probably should have given him a bit more room, because he was on the inside and I had some space on the right," admitted Hulkenberg on Thursday.

"Visibility is also difficult when you are alongside each other and I thought I was ahead enough, but I wasn’t clearly, in hindsight."

"He just closed the door too early, he didn't leave any space for me," explained Massa of the view from the Williams cockpit. "The problem is that I was leaving the pit lane and I was doing the corner and I was in front.

"On that angle for me it was impossible to see him. I just saw him when I was already starting braking: then I saw him so for me I couldn't do anything."

Massa revealed that Hulkenberg has subsequently sent him a text to say sorry for the clash. "He wrote me an SMS to apologise, which was nice."

The incident was reviewed by the race stewards who duly handed Hulkenberg a three-place grid penalty to serve this weekend in Suzuka, which the team has accepted without appeal.

"We take up the penalty here, but it’s behind us. Now we move on and make the best of it this weekend."

Hulkenberg found out this weekend that he will continue to have Sergio Perez for this team mate again in 2015, which he said was a good call for all concerned.

"We work well together. I think we are a strong combination and I think we both have faith in the team and we see still a lot of potential that we can extract and move forward, together with Force India, and I think both of us want to continue growing with the team."

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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.