Hulkenberg "upset" after team orders cost him chance to overtake Ricciardo
F1 News
Renault F1 team boss Cyril Abiteboul says he understands that Nico Hulkenberg is “a bit upset” following the Canadian Grand Prix, as the German felt he had an opportunity to pass teammate Daniel Ricciardo if there were no team orders.
Renault have suffered for pace so far this season but the race in Montreal maybe signalled a turning point, as Ricciardo and Hulkenberg came home sixth and seventh respectively.
With McLaren failing to score, it puts Renault right back in the mix in the fight for fourth, with just two points separating the teams now.
Despite this, Abiteboul’s mood may have been a little spoilt by the frustration of Hulkenberg, whose tyres were eight laps newer than Ricciardo’s and the battle between them was threatening to hot up in the closing laps of the race.
However, the team stepped in to preserve the result, and Abiteboul said to Autosport after the race: "He's a bit upset. And I understand why he's upset.
"Daniel was on slightly older tyres than Nico, also because he had a go at a couple of fast cars, clearly his tyres were not in such a good shape.
"Probably Nico would have had the pace to overtake him, but frankly we said 'we need that result'.
"I don't like to have to do that, it's not the style of the team, that's something that we don't intend to do on many occasions.
"I wanted to make sure that the team's back in the game, and the drivers will also be back in the game, their own game, from next week onwards - but for this weekend it was important to get back as close as possible to the team that's still fourth, which is McLaren."