Hulkenberg calls Imola ‘one of the closer ones’ as Kick Sauber come within touching distance of points

Nico Hulkenberg was left to rue the late Safety Car that denied him any chance of sneaking a point on Sunday at Imola, after the German found himself in 10th place in the closing stages of the race.

But in the end he had to settle for 12th at the flag, after losing out to some faster cars once the Safety Car bunched the field back up. Hulkenberg remained philosophical after the race though, pointing out that it was mainly luck that allowed him the opportunity to fight for a point in the first place.

“It was definitely one of the closer ones and one of the more positive ones this year but obviously we got a little lucky with the VSC timing,” he explained.

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“That is what gave us a cheap stop and put us in that position in the first place. However, it was going quite all right, the pace was perfectly respectable on several occasions but then the Safety Car put everyone together and just surrounded with a couple of faster cars behind that I couldn’t keep behind.”

Kick Sauber have struggled to score on pure pace, their points instead coming courtesy of Hulkenberg’s drive in Australia when the wet conditions opened up the opportunity to score for those who could keep their car on track.

Gabriel Bortoleto by contrast has not scored this season, and wound up propping up the field in Imola after stopping three times.

“Literally, we were in the wrong place at the wrong time basically the whole race,” he said afterwards, thanks to an early pit stop well before the Virtual Safety Car period.

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“I think sometimes in racing you get lucky or unlucky, today it was unlucky with the timing of the Virtual Safety Car that cost us a lot of momentum. In that first part of the race, we had good pace on the hards, but yeah just a bit frustrating because of that.”

Sauber remain bottom of the standings, with six points.