Hulkenberg’s rues grid blunder: ‘I screwed up, plain and simple’

Nico Hulkenberg admitted to a massive blunder at the start of Sunday’s Qatar Grand Prix, a mistake for which he had been warned by his Haas team as he rolled onto the grid at Lusail.

Hulkenberg was hit with a 10-second penalty for starting his race from the wrong grid box, having been caught out by the sight of an empty slot right in front of him on the grid.

The empty grid box was set to be occupied by Carlos Sainz, but a fuel system issue identified by Ferrari during the run-up to the race ultimately forced the Scuderia to retire the Spaniard’s car.

Hulkenberg thus completed his formation but inadvertently lined up in Sainz’s assigned grid box.

“I screwed up,” he admitted to Sky Germany. “We don’t need to argue about it.

“It’s a strange situation when suddenly there’s no car in front of you. You’re used to catching up. Screwed up, plain and simple.”

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As Hulkenberg took his ‘spot’, onboard footage showed the Haas driver frantically looking around him as he suddenly became aware of his mistake.

“I realised before I stopped but you can’t reverse and the damage was done, so that was obviously a big mistake from me,” he said. “That stopped our race before it even started.”

Adding insult to injury, Hulkenberg’s race engineer had taken the precaution of warning him over the radio on the formation lap “to leave the free space behind Norris in front of you”, a notice that evidently fell on deaf ears.

Hulkenberg ultimately finished his race a lowly P16.

“Nico starting in the wrong grid spot at the beginning didn’t help at all because once you get 10 seconds behind at the start of the race where we are, you have no chance,” commented Haas team boss Guenther Steiner.

“We fought but it wasn’t enough.”

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