Stunning simultaneous shut-down robs Renault of double points finish

Renault suffered a double retirement in Bahrain on Sunday, with Nico Hulkenberg and Daniel Ricciardo’s cars failing within seconds of each other in the closing stages of the race.

The yellow duo was heading towards a double top-ten finish when both cars completely lost drive at exactly the same spot on the track, instantly transforming a productive race into a stinging loss for the French squad.

Hulkenberg in particular felt thwarted by events, having brilliantly muscled his way from P17 on the grid to sixth with just four laps to go.

“It just went, it just lost drive, very suddenly, with no signs before. It just stopped working basically” said the German.

“It felt power-train related but you can’t be sure at this point.

“Tough for me, it would have been too nice to have that race from 17th to 6th. It was really a fun race to be part of today, lots of battling, lots of overtaking. Unfortunately we didn’t get to the finish line.”

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Hulkenberg indeed enjoyed a few good battles before his demise, notably with his team mate, with Ricciardo even making a perilous contact with Hulkenberg during a wheel-to-wheel scrap.

Despite the painful turn of events, the Hulk was determined to focus on his team’s level of performance rather than its reliability.

“Definitely we were competitive, when you saw that we were definitely in the bunch of the mid-field, that we have a competitive package and we can battle with everyone.

“Some positives obviously to take from this weekend, but still work to be done with two weekends with hiccups and issues.

“We just need to be cleaner in the preparation process and the whole weekend, without problems.”

Ricciardo’s side of the garage elected to go for a one-stop strategy on Sunday, by the Aussie and his crew knew long before the team’s double retirement that they had chosen the wrong approach.

“I felt like we got past a point in the first stint where it was too late to come back [from a one-stop strategy] and it was pretty much at that point I knew it wasn’t the best thing to do,” said Ricciardo

“If we then did the two-stop we would have come out behind everyone else so we had to commit to it.

“In hindsight, well even during the race we knew it wasn’t the best thing. We tried it. That was the idea. But I think a two-stop would have been much more preferred.”

After his sudden stoppage at Turn 2, seconds after Hulkenberg’s shutdown, Ricciardo exited his car without re-fitting its steering wheel, which warranted a post-race trip to the stewards’ office.

However, Ricciardo explained that he had purposefully left off the steering wheel because his car’s energy recovery system alert light had turned red, signaling an “electrically unsafe” car, and a risk of electrocution.

Consequently, no further action was taken by the Bahrain Grand Prix stewards.

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