F1's most bizarre retirement of the season explained

Nico Hulkenberg has explained the cause of his freak retirement from Formula 1's Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix.

The German lost a likely first points finish of the season after his Audi was completely shut down by a stray stone thrown up by the car of Liam Lawson hit the roll hoop emergency electrical switch. In a further twist, another stone also punctured Hulkenberg's nosecone and struck the fire extinguisher. 

With no power, the German coasted into the pit lane and was obliged to retire from the race, initially unaware of what had happened.

Helped by a high attrition rate and a penalty for Franco Colapinto, Lawson went on to be classified P8, highlighting how costly the retirement was for the Audi driver.

“He put a wheel in the gravel exit of 12, and kicked up a lot of gravel,” said Hulkenberg when asked by Crash.net about his retirement.

“And that gravel, somehow, one stone pulled the emergency trigger on the left of the roll hoop, and it just killed the car, from then to now, and just totally switched off and game over.

"The car was dead, and then obviously I just coasted into the pit lane because there was nothing left. It was just complete shutdown.”

Asked if it was the weirdest retirement he’d ever had, he said: “I've never seen or heard about this, to be honest, in my career. Very unlucky, strange, the timing of that.

“When you see what happened at the end, two top cars dropping out – I don't know, somehow the racing god doesn't want us to score yet.”

Informed by Crash.net about what had transpired, a surprised Lawson said, “You serious? No way. Oh, that's so unfortunate. Obviously, I had no idea, and if I could perfectly aim for something like that, it would be quite impressive, but I had no idea. I just knew that he dropped out.”

Hulkenberg rues Barcelona GP "downward spiral"

Hulkenberg had a busy first lap, losing spots to Charles Leclerc and Lawson’s team mate Arvid Lindblad, although the latter gave it back having gained an advantage. He also went off-track himself.

"Charles [passed] I think at the start,” he said. “Arvid did a big detour and came out, but he then gave it back. It was tight. To avoid contact with, I think it was Franco, I had to go inside – tight wheel-to-wheel racing.”

He then spent much of the race behind Lawson, feeling that he could have gone much faster.

“I think we had way more pace, but if you're stuck behind a car here, which was Liam for me the entire race until we stopped, it was pretty difficult, when you get close, it just immediately takes a toll on your tyres, and it's just kind of the downward spiral from there.

“So had we managed to get ahead of him, I think we could have had quite a strong pace from there.”

He also cited Lawson for moving under braking: “Yeah, he did a few times, he was quite on the limit for that.”