Hulkenberg: I wasn’t able to avoid the barriers

Ten minutes into FP2 on Friday afternoon, Hulkenberg went wide in his Renault, got on the kerbs which suddenly became grass and gone was the traction, out of his control the yellow and black car speared hard into the metal barrier, adjacent to the grass run-off area.

It was a vicious hit resulting in a very mangled right front and rear on the Renault, which had bounced back onto the track. The German hopped out of the car unscathed as the session was red flagged to clear the wreck and debris.

Hulkenberg reported afterwards, "I ran wide and went over the kerb, making the car bottom-out which caught me out. I ran a bit too wide on the exit of the last corner, took a little bit too much curb there — wanted it a bit too much, probably."

"The car bottomed out and from there really it was done, I was a passenger. Once I bottomed out that really pulled me off the track onto the grass — and obviously no grip on the grass and it was inevitable from there that I would hit the wall, so that’s a shame and I’ve given my crew some work to do.

“It’s a pity and frustrating. Obviously it’s far from ideal to crash on a Friday, it’s not what I want, but unfortunately it happened today,” he added.