Nico Hülkenberg forced to concede defeat to Kimi Räikkönen at the end of the race

Nico Hülkenberg seems clearly liberated since his move to Renault for next season was made official. A new example of this came this weekend in Mexico with some very impressive performances. It started with a very strong 5th place in qualifying, ahead of the two Ferraris.

Unlike in Austin, he also managed a very good start, showing the ability to overtake Daniel Ricciardo and find himself just behind Nico Rosberg and Max Verstappen at the first corner: « I had a very good start but once the pit stops were done, it was a bit of a lonely afternoon for me. This allowed me to pay attention to my tires and my pace. »

In the end, however, he had to contend with Kimi Räikkönen’s comeback, who was on a two-stop strategy. With fresher tires, the Finn was able to push the German to concede the 6th final place: « At the end, the battle with Kimi was going to be difficult because he had a huge advantage in terms of tires. I was even surprised we could keep him behind us for so long. I tried to defend as much as I could on the inside, but braking on the dirty line with tires that were 60 laps old is a bit complicated! He turned in on me and there was no way I could stop. So I forced myself into a spin to avoid an accident. »

Behind, Sergio Perez was much less satisfied as he found himself behind the Williams of Felipe Massa, with its impressive top speed. He was therefore forced to settle for 10th place: « Even though I scored a point today, it was very frustrating to be stuck behind the Williams and not be able to overtake. I tried everything but it’s not easy because they have a big top speed advantage on the straights. There were several moments where I was very close to overtaking Felipe but in the end, it wasn’t possible. »

The local of the stage therefore believes that the team should have stopped sooner to avoid finding themselves in this situation: « I think we could have tried something different with the strategy because we underestimated the effect of the medium tires, which had a much longer lifespan than we expected. Maybe we should have stopped earlier and done a longer stint on mediums. »

The combined result of the two Sahara Force India drivers nevertheless allows them to extend their lead in the championship over Williams, which is the main goal for the end of the season.