Renault suffer same failure for third race in a row through Nico Hulkenberg

Chinese GP

Renault suffer same failure for third race in a row

Trouble for the French squad.

Matthew Scott

Sunday 14 April 2019 15:23

Renault are likely to come under the microscope after an MGU-K failure on one of the French marque's power units caused a retirement for the third race in a row – Nico Hulkenberg the impacted driver at the Chinese Grand Prix.

Both Hulkenberg and works team stable-mate Daniel Ricciardo were fitted with new versions of the part for the Shanghai race, while Lando Norris also took the update. Carlos Sainz was already fitted with the new part in Bahrain, having suffered a failure in Australia.

Ricciardo and Hulkenberg stopped on the same lap in Bahrain with MGU-K-related issues, but the redesigned part brought the German no better luck as he lasted just 18 laps of the 1000th World Championship race.

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"Nico unfortunately retired with an MGU-K related problem that we will investigate further after this weekend," Abiteboul said.

"We will look at the weekend as a whole and our focus switches to the next race."

Unfortunate news: Nico’s car has been retired. #RSspirit #ChineseGP #Race1000 pic.twitter.com/ZeEJrecDnw
— Renault F1 Team (@RenaultF1Team) April 14, 2019

Renault came into 2019 hoping to make up ground to Mercedes Ferrari and Red Bull, with the big-money singing of Ricciardo backing that up, however they are already 118 points adrift of the Silver Arrows.

Hulkenberg was left to lament consecutive DNFs, having seen team-mate Ricciardo take best of the rest honours in seventh to suggest Renault were at least on good form in Shanghai.

"It's clearly a very disappointing race for us today, it was a difficult start to the race, I lost a position and it was tough following cars ahead," Hulkenberg said. "We pitted and came out in some traffic, but then I felt a loss of power.

"We tried our best to fix it out there as it looked like a software issue, but it wasn't possible and we had to park up. We're looking into the issue, but it looks like an MGU-K related problem.

"We have things to work on ahead of the next race, but we will look at everything in detail and come back stronger."