Renault were concerned Nico’s RS18 was ‘live’

Renault warned Charlie Whiting in race control that Nico Hulkenberg’s RS18 could have been “live” as the marshals went to push it following his breakdown in Hungary.

Hulkenberg’s race at the Hungaroring came to a premature end when his Renault F1 car suffered an electrical failure.

As the team wasn’t receiving any information from the car, they were uncertain whether it was live.

But while Hulkenberg jumped out of the car, making a point not to touch it, the marshals present almost immediately began to push the car out of harms way, and did so without wearing protective gloves.

“The marshals dived in straight away and started pushing the car,” Renault’s technical director Nick Chester told RaceFans.net.

“We got on the radio to Charlie and said ‘look, we don’t know what state the car’s in because everything died completely and we have got no data’.

“But the marshals were already pushing it around by then.

“They lived, so it wasn’t live…”

Whiting explained that all marshals should wear gloves at all times as they never know if a car is live or not.

“If a car stops, they don’t stop to see what it’s like then put their gloves on if necessary,” said the FIA race director.

“They should wear them all the time, that’s our instruction.

“You can’t always be sure whether the systems are working correctly so as a precautionary measure they should always all be wearing them.”

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