Nico Hulkenberg received a personal apology from Zak Brown following the strong words the McLaren CEO had directed at him live on Sky Sports. Zak Brown later revised his view on the responsibilities for the Sprint Race incident in Austin, effectively absolving the German Sauber driver of blame.
Nico Hulkenberg went from being a scapegoat to being cleared of responsibility. And, looking back, it’s clear that this outcome was inevitable. However, in the heat of the moment, the Sauber driver had been singled out as the sole cause of the collision that took both McLaren drivers, Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris, out of contention at Turn 1 of the Austin Sprint Race.
At the braking zone for Turn 1, just a few dozen meters after the Sprint start on Saturday, Oscar Piastri attempted a move on Lando Norris. However, Nico Hulkenberg was already moving into the gap—a space that appeared small but was, in reality, a wide opening he was exploiting to gain positions. Inside Hulkenberg’s line, there was still room; Fernando Alonso, a very experienced driver, had executed the same maneuver earlier, demonstrating that the gap was navigable.
As soon as Piastri crossed trajectories with Norris, contact occurred that eliminated all four cars from the immediate battle. This allowed Max Verstappen to recover significant points on both the championship leader and the first chaser.
After the Sprint, Zak Brown, McLaren CEO, spoke strongly about Hulkenberg, claiming that it was the Sauber driver who had triggered the contact that ended the race for both MCL39s.
“It was terrible. Our drivers are not at fault. Some drivers at the front drove like amateurs and took out both our drivers. I need to see the replay, but it’s clear that Nico [Hulkenberg] ended up on top of Oscar. He had no reason to be there,” Brown said.
These were very strong words from Zak Brown, as they unfairly criticized the experienced Sauber driver and, above all, were inaccurate. The comment “I need to see the replay” left room for doubt about such strong accusations toward another driver.
Indeed, a few hours after the Sprint, Brown had the opportunity to review the incident involving the two McLaren cars and understood exactly what had happened. Hulkenberg had been literally squeezed between Oscar Piastri’s McLaren and Fernando Alonso’s Aston Martin due to a sudden trajectory change by the championship leader. That maneuver had triggered the entire chain of events.
Jonathan Wheatley, the Sauber team principal, emphasized that Zak Brown quickly sent apologies to Nico Hulkenberg after understanding the full dynamics of the Saturday collision.
“Zak sent me an apology immediately after the incident. He personally apologized to Nico,” Wheatley said. “This is a passionate sport, and we love that passion. Two cars are fighting for the championship, and both are taken out at Turn 1.”
“Sometimes it’s easy to assume blame falls elsewhere and to react emotionally. I think that’s probably what Zak did with Sky, caught up in the heat of the moment and the emotion. But I’ve known Zak for a long time. He’s a racer. We’re all like that, and we resolved the matter afterwards.”
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