Nico Hulkenberg’s dig at former Renault boss with Daniel Ricciardo exit factor revisited

Nico Hulkenberg has called out former Renault F1 team boss Cyril Abiteboul for making decisions that “ended up going wrong for me” when the team signed Daniel Ricciardo in 2019.

Hulkenberg joined Renault from Force India in 2017 and was the team’s lead driver, outclassing Jolyon Palmer before the Briton was dropped to make way for Carlos Sainz.

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But even then it was Hulkenberg ahead of the Spaniard in their one full season as team-mates, scoring 69 points to the Sainz’s 53 in 2018.

However, bringing former Red Bull star and multiple grand prix winner Daniel Ricciardo into the fold in 2019 changed the dynamics within the team, according to Hulkenberg.

Having been Renault’s lead driver two seasons in a row, the German was suddenly lagging behind his new team-mate with Hulkenberg believing a few “strategic decisions” went against him.

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“In itself, it wasn’t difficult to be his team-mate,” the German told GP Racing of Ricciardo’s arrival. “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.

“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.”

One of those ‘strategic decisions’ came at the Canadian Grand Prix when Hulkenberg was ordered not to attack Ricciardo despite only racing for sixth place.

“I couldn’t understand it,” he recalled. “That was one of the turning points.

“OK, 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!

“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.

“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 left Renault at the end of that season and spent three full seasons out of the sport before returning on a full-time basis with Haas at the beginning of 2023.

Abiteboul parted company with Renault at the end of the 2020 season and now heads Hyundai’s World Rally Championship, with the Korean manufacturer leading both the Drivers’ and Manufacturers’ standings ahead of the final four rounds of 2024.

Hulkenberg has taken satisfaction from the fact that Abiteboul is no longer on the F1 scene.

And he revealed that he was originally brought to Renault by Fred Vasseur, the current Ferrari team principal, who spent a brief spell as Renault F1 boss in 2016 before resigning following a power struggle with Abiteboul.

Vasseur had previously overseen Hulkenberg’s title-winning GP2 (now F2) season with the ART Grand Prix team in 2009.

“It’s funny that, five years later, he’s no longer here,” Hulkenberg said in reference to Abiteboul. “I left too, but I came back and I’m still here. That means something.

“There’s also a detail that perhaps isn’t widely known: it was actually Fred who got me signed.

“It was he who brought me here. But he also had problems and left very quickly. That was another change.”

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