Nico Hulkenberg said he could have made it into the top ten in qualifying had it not been for an unusual problem on his last flying lap.
The Force India driver said a visor tear-off caught on his tyre as he approached the heavy braking zone into turn 12, costing him time in the corner.
“To begin with qualifying was going well and I really believed Q3 was possible,” said Hulkenberg. “On my final lap in Q2 I was on target for the top ten until something really unusual happened because a tear-off visor wrapped itself around my front tyre going into turn 12.”
“I’ve never experienced something like that in my career and when I turned into the corner I had no grip, I ran wide and lost a couple of tenths. It was my final Q2 lap so it was quite frustrating and unlucky.”
Hulkenberg qualified less than five-hundredths of a second behind team mate Sergio Perez and will start the race from 13th place.
2014 United States Grand Prix
Image © Force India
Ivan Vinitskyy (@ivan-vinitskyy)
1st November 2014, 22:03
What? is this for real? And this tear-off did not come off all the way through the lap and he only found out when he pitted?
hunocsi (@hunocsi)
1st November 2014, 22:18
You know, probably someone else’s tear-off…
hunocsi (@hunocsi)
1st November 2014, 22:19
And he also said he took real notice in T12.
Chuck
1st November 2014, 22:27
Was sitting at the apex of T12 and I was talking about this with the guy next to me. Bottas dropped the tear-off earlier that lap and it was right on the line. One of the Lotuses (I think) came through and barely missed it, then Hulk came through and ran right over it with his front-right. So he’s definitely not making it up, although who knows what the impact was.
lubhz (@lubhz)
2nd November 2014, 13:26
well spotted, thanks for sharing
Sharon H (@sharoncom)
1st November 2014, 22:21
Never heard of that happening before.
hunocsi (@hunocsi)
1st November 2014, 22:31
I can remember a slightly similar incident from last year for Räikkönen, when a tear-off got stuck in his brake duct and it overheated. http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/109491
@HoHum (@hohum)
1st November 2014, 22:37
I have often thought it miraculous that a tear-off has not caused a spill in MotoGp so I guess it’s a valid point in F1 when we are talking thousandths of a second.
Strontium (@strontium)
2nd November 2014, 0:44
I have always thought it a bit odd that drivers are allowed to discard bits of plastic film onto the track when they like. It’s just added debris. Maybe they can come up with some method of discarding them inside the cockpit instead.
SennaNmbr1 (@)
2nd November 2014, 9:40
They could put them between their legs.
Bobby (@f1bobby)
2nd November 2014, 11:28
Haha, I love it. Yes, why not. It’s very F1 to come up with some expensive, highly technical ‘visor disposal unit’ when the drivers could just do what you or I might do with a chocolate wrapper in our car! :)
Dave (@)
2nd November 2014, 19:01
Or have the equivalent of a door pocket, like on road cars. Though it’d probably be called the ‘Visor Cover Disposal Cavity’.
Klon (@)
2nd November 2014, 11:01
And the British Academy Television Award for Dumbest Excuse In All Of Sports goes to…
Chris (@cgturbo)
2nd November 2014, 13:58
@klon
Obviously not Hulkenberg, since it’s a valid issue that has been shown to happen before…
macrob
2nd November 2014, 11:57
Yeah sure Nico…and Perez had a Williams car painted in black during Q2 and that is why he beat you again…this driver is so overrated…
zomtec (@zomtec)
2nd November 2014, 12:52
hear the expert talking…
PMccarthy_is_a_legend (@pmccarthy_is_a_legend)
2nd November 2014, 17:07
BS.
Wyvern
2nd November 2014, 18:13
1 word … RollOffs. I run them in long MX races and Rallys . The old ones have a string . my new ones are no touch sensor …A wave of a hand and the tape moves . Done ! no garbage , no issues , Heck even the cameras on the cars have a roll off system
Captain Shuntalot (@f1withmyson)
4th November 2014, 16:30
I remember that something similar happened in ChampCar (now IndyCar) — during a pit stop a driver tore off a visor strip and it promptly got sucked into the engine’s air intake. You could clearly see it on the slow-mo replay. A little searching reveals that it was Martin Brundle in 1992, but I couldn’t find any video of the incident.