Nico Hulkenberg says Charles Leclerc was "impatient and frustrated"
F1 News
Nico Hulkenberg experienced Charles Leclerc's tough home Grand Prix weekend first hand after their collision in the streets of Monte Carlo. The Renault driver believes Leclerc was "impatient and frustrated" which led to the ambitious overtake attempt.
After Ferrari kept Leclerc in the garage in Q1, the man from Monaco was forced to start from P15. As he looked to make progress up the field, he couldn't get past Hulkenberg.
The 21-year-old went up the inside, clipped the barrier and clipped Hulkenberg in the process. This ruined both of their races. The German driver describes his view of the crash.
“He came first of all from quite far back and then I didn’t leave much of a gap anyway and saw that he launched. I played fair, I opened the steering, and tried to let him some space, tried to let us both live, I think he spun into his own axis, he just kissed me but sliced my rear tyre open and that’s where basically it all started to go wrong," Hulkenberg told Motorsport week.
"But I think he was definitely too ambitious in that moment. I think he was a bit impatient and frustrated after [qualifying], but that’s Monaco, doesn’t work like that always.”
Hulkenberg managed to stay on track for the duration of the race but didn't manage to score any points. His 13th place finish wasn't helped by further problems with a pile-up behind Robert Kubica.
His teammate, Daniel Ricciardo brought home two very welcome points for Renault.