Nico Hülkenberg — 2019 season

Nico Hülkenberg's 2019 Formula 1 season marked his final full campaign with the Renault Sport Formula One Team, yielding 37 points and a 14th-place championship finish in a year characterized by inconsistent car performance and critical reliability issues that often undermined his efforts.

Going in

Heading into 2019, Hülkenberg was in his third season with Renault, a team that had demonstrated clear ambitions to climb the constructors' standings. The V6 turbo-hybrid era, which had seen Lewis Hamilton secure his first title with Mercedes in 2014 and continue their dominance into 2015, meant Renault was still battling a significant performance gap to the front-runners. The team had invested heavily, and the expectation was a continued upward trajectory, with Hülkenberg, a seasoned campaigner, expected to lead that charge. The technical regulations, including fuel-flow restrictions and heavier cars, placed a premium on power unit efficiency and chassis development, areas where Renault aimed to make gains.

How it played out

The season began with a promising P7 finish at the Australian Grand Prix, securing 6 points. However, this early momentum was quickly disrupted by a sequence of mechanical failures. The Bahrain and Chinese Grands Prix both saw Hülkenberg retire due to power unit issues, significantly impacting his early points tally. These early DNFs highlighted a recurring theme of the season: the RS19's reliability. Despite these setbacks, Hülkenberg demonstrated his capability to extract performance from the car when it held together, particularly in the mid-season.

His performance saw a resurgence around the Canadian and French Grands Prix, where he secured P7 and P8 finishes respectively, adding 6 and 4 points to his score. The British Grand Prix yielded a single point for P10. A significant setback occurred at the German Grand Prix, a chaotic wet race where Hülkenberg, running strongly in contention for a podium, crashed out due to an accident on lap 39. This DNF was a missed opportunity for a substantial points haul in a race that saw several front-runners falter.

Defining moments

The Italian Grand Prix at Monza stood out as Hülkenberg's strongest performance of the year. Starting from P6, he navigated the high-speed circuit to finish P5, earning 10 points – his highest single-race points score of the season. This result underscored his ability to perform under pressure and capitalize on opportunities, particularly on tracks that suited the Renault power unit's characteristics. Other notable points finishes included P8 at Spa-Francorchamps and consistent top-10 results in Singapore, Russia, Mexico, and the United States. However, another power unit related DNF, this time a brake bias issue, curtailed his Japanese Grand Prix. By the end of the 21-race season, Hülkenberg had accumulated 37 points, finishing 14th in the without any podium finishes, a statistic that continued to follow his career.