Hülkenberg (Audi): “Tackler than ever before” – Bortoleto 1/1000 behind Hamilton

Even before the Monza weekend, Nico Hülkenberg had noted that it would be a tough task to break into the top ten in Monza qualifying. And that’s exactly how it turned out. The unluckiest of the lot was Nico’s team-mate Gabriel Bortoleto: Lewis Hamilton scraped through to the next round at the very end of Q2, at the expense of Gabi, who lost a thousandth of a second to the Ferrari star!

Nico Hülkenberg was asked what had made life difficult for him that day. Nico replied: “The question should rather be – what didn’t? It was all very close-run things today. In the first part of qualifying, I kept having cars in front of me that were just a fraction faster. They pulled away from me, so I couldn’t benefit from the slipstream. The cars are so tricky here – I’ve never experienced anything like it at Monza.”

“Finding a slipstream and using it perfectly makes a huge difference here. But fluctuations like that – I can’t explain them. I’ve never experienced it being this sensitive before.”

“It was incredibly difficult to get the timing right. It wasn’t until the final session that I managed a good lap in that respect. The lap was clean, but not fast enough for the top ten.”

Of course, it’s not all bad: “We knew that Monza isn’t the easiest circuit for us. But then we actually performed better than expected in terms of top speed. So it’s positive that we came so close to the top ten.”

Topic of the week

2027 MotoGP grid: Almost a quarter of the riders are new – implications for SBK

The 2027 MotoGP grid will feature five new regular riders, with at least three of those dropped set to move to the World Superbike Championship. The ones to suffer as a result are Alvaro Bautista and Danilo Petrucci.

Ivo Schützbach

Read more

TV program

Today

Monza: Das Rennen

FIA Formula One World Championship

06.09.2026 - 13:00