The two Haas F1 drivers, Kevin Magnussen and Romain Grosjean, were critical of Nico Hulkenberg following incidents during Sunday’s Hungarian Grand Prix.
The Renault driver started 12th for Sunday’s race at the Hungaroring and would make hefty contact with Grosjean exiting Turn 1 but would avoid penalty after an investigation, later, he would be the victim of aggressive defence by Magnussen, running down the grass between Turns 2 and 3 with the Dane penalised as a result.
So frustrated by Hulkenberg’s move, the Frenchman claimed F1 is becoming at risk of becoming “NASCAR”.
“It was a big hit and I went pretty high in the air,” Grosjean claimed.
“He had lots of space on the inside, but he locked things up. I don’t see the difference between Nico and Verstappen, to be fair. Again, the stewards’ consistency is a bit strange.
“It was Turn 1 – but Spa-Francorchamps in 2012 was Turn 1 and we can’t do whatever we want,” he added. Turn 1, lap two, lap 10, it’s the same thing. You can’t run over another car.
“We want racing, but we don’t want wheel-banging, we’re not in NASCAR.”
Watching the incident from behind, Magnussen would radio his team and say: “I mean, if you can do what Hulkenberg did to Romain, then it’s going to be a dirty race.”
Post-race, he would then use Hulkenberg’s earlier action to question why he was penalised five seconds for their own wheel-to-wheel moment.
“I don’t really understand the penalty,” he said. “I didn’t even touch him. He could have chosen to back out, as I had the corner. I was on the inside and we were side-by-side. If anything, I was a little bit in front.
“I just chose my line. It’s not like I moved off the racing line. We braked late, so it’s natural you go wide and push on the entry. He put himself in danger on the outside.”
Though he didn’t comment on the Grosjean incident, the 29-year-old had plenty of harsh words about the Dane when speaking afterwards.
“I congratulated him for the most unsporting driver of the whole grid once again,” Hulkenberg told NBC.
“When it comes to racing, he’s just nasty. Hard defending is fine but when he does this, it’s just ruthless and sending people into the wall. What he did there, opening up the steering, making me run wide, it’s just being an a**hole basically.”
The two drivers were later caught exchanging words, ending with the already infamous “suck my b***s” response from Magnussen.
“We had really nice words, so it’s quite interesting with him, yeah,” the Renault driver concluded.