Curious retirement for Nico Hülkenberg: a pebble knocked out his Audi

What an unusual reason for a race retirement! The fact that Nico Hülkenberg has not been able to drive a race at all or not to the end this season due to a problem with his Audi is nothing new: he was unable to start the GP in Australia, as well as the sprint in Miami. In the sprint in China and the race in Miami, he had to retire during the race. But the DNF in Barcelona was an unusual kind of DNF for Hülkenberg. A slip-up by Racing Bulls driver Liam Lawson stirred up gravel - and that caused the total failure of Hülkenberg's Audi.

Pebbles switched off Hülkenberg's Audi

The German said after his retirement in Barcelona: "It really was a very unusual and unfortunate retirement. Liam got a bit too far out in front of me and got one wheel into the gravel at turn 12, which caused a lot of stones to be thrown up. Some of them hit our car and apparently triggered the emergency stop switch, which led to a complete failure of the system. Everything shut down immediately and that was the end of our race." What a bitter coincidence! After hitting the button known as the "kill switch", Hülkenberg could only roll into the garage.

Audi's race director Allan McNish explained: "Nico's car switched off after Lawson went off the track and kicked up gravel, which triggered the kill switch. This activated an automatic safety function designed to switch off the car in an emergency situation. Nico was able to roll back into the pits in neutral, but unfortunately that was the end of his race."

Racing god against Hülki?

Hülkenberg confessed after the race: "I've never heard of this before in my entire career. It's very unfortunate in terms of the timing. The racing god probably doesn't want us to score points yet."

Hülkenberg: "It's obviously very frustrating, because we were in a good position to fight for points. The pace we showed all weekend was convincing, and after qualifying there was a real chance to get a strong result. But unfortunately we are going home empty-handed. This was simply a case of bad luck and not a problem with performance or reliability."

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