Widely regarded as one of the best modern drivers never to have won a race (or even finished on the podium), Nico Hulkenberg recalls how his best shot of success at Renault was thwarted by Cyril Abiteboul.
Hulkenberg made his F1 debut with Williams in the 2010 Australian Grand Prix and subsequently raced for Force India and Sauber before arriving at Renault at the start of the 2017.
He was initially paired with Jolyon Palmer, before Carlos Sainz arrived on loan from Red Bull for 2018. The following season Daniel Ricciardo made a shock switch to Enstone that spelled the end for Hulkenberg.
Hulkenberg had been lead driver during both his first two campaigns with Renault, outscoring Sainz by 69 points to 53 in 2018. But once Ricciardo was installed it was clear to Hulkenberg which was Abiteboul's favoured driver.
“In itself, it wasn’t difficult to be his team-mate,” he told GP Racing magazine. “But I think during that period things happened within the team that, particularly with the management, were not very positive for me.
“When you recruit a great driver you have to convince the management and pay a high price," Hulkenberg explained. “But then the performance of the car is not up to what it should be, or what was promised to the management, and the pressure increases.
“In addition, there were some strategic decisions that ended up going wrong for me," he added, recalling the 2019 Canadian GP when he was handed team orders not to attack Ricciardo in a battle for sixth place.
“I couldn’t understand it,” he admitted. “That was one of the turning points. Okay, it had been a difficult season up to that point, but the decision to freeze positions?
“I could easily have overtaken him. I had much fresher tyres and I could have overtaken him without the slightest risk. For me, it was an absurd explanation.
“In retrospect, I shouldn’t have obeyed. Of course they wouldn’t have liked it. It would have caused friction. So what?
“It happens all the time that there’s friction in the team, and then the season goes on and you move on to the next race. Things are forgotten very quickly!"
If the story sounds familiar then it might be because of the recent situation in Hungary where Lando Norris was ordered to hand over a six second lead to team mate Oscar Piastri on the grounds of team harmony. In which case, Hulkenberg might have a warning from the past for those in papaya today.
“After that, I think it was during the second half of the season that I didn’t feel any more support and I realised that we were no longer a team with the management," he said.
“What we had built up over the previous two years kind of dissolved. It wasn’t very good, and obviously that also had an impact on my performance.”
Hulkenberg did indeed leave the team at the end of the season. He had two outings for Racing Point in 2020 and two more Aston Martin in 2022 as a late stand-in to cover for illness and injury but was otherwise on the sidelines.
But those cameo appearances rejuvenated his enthusiasm for F1 and he returned to full time racing with Haas in 2023, and will year will move to Sauber in preparation for Audi's factory team operation.
Meanwhile Abiteboul's decision to back Ricciardo also didn't end well, with the Australian's decision to jump ship for an ill-fated spell at McLaren at the end of 2020 contributing to the principal's exit from Renault and F1 as a whole.
“It’s funny that - five years later - he’s no longer here,” Hulkenberg said of Abiteboul. “I left too, but I came back and I’m still here. That means something."
Hulkenberg felt that he and Abiteboul had never really gelled, in part because the decision to hire him in the first place wasn't made by Abiteboul but by Frederick Vasseur, who was briefly Renault principal before moving to Sauber and more recently to Ferrari.
“There’s also a detail that perhaps isn’t widely known: it was actually Fred who got me signed," he confirmed. “It was he who brought me here. But he also had problems and left very quickly. That was another change.”
Renault - now racing under the Alpine marque - has continued to struggle for management stability in the years since. Otmar Szafnauer briefly took the reins before Renault CEO Luca de Meo purged the top echelons of the team in July 2023.
Engine chief Bruno Famin took over initially on an interim basis, but will be replaced by Oliver Oakes from next week's Dutch Grand Prix, lending credence to Hulkenberg's complaints about the problems with the erratic way the team has been run.
Whether things are any better for Hulkenberg at Audi remain to be seen. With 217 Grand Prix starts to his name, he is still to finish higher than fourth place despite the early promise of a pole in Brazil during his maiden season.
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