Hulkenberg urges Renault to keep things simple

Nico Hulkenberg believes Renault can learn from Force India's philosophy of keeping things simple to help maximize its potential.

Force India has shown impressive progress over the past 10 years in Formula 1, only once failing to improve on its previous year's constructors' championship position. 2016 saw the team's best result as it beat Williams to fourth place overall, but Hulkenberg still made the decision to move to Renault in order to join a manufacturer team.

Asked what he has learned at Force India that he can take with him to Renault, Hulkenberg told RACER: "Simple is good, very often.

"Some big teams have so many resources and they get lost sometimes in the complexity of the sport and of engineering. At Force India I think we were good at keeping it simple, focusing on the important stuff and that way we ran pretty well and successfully."

Hulkenberg believes Renault's potential makes it a better long-term proposition for him, with the German having yet to secure a podium finish from 115 starts in Formula 1. However, the French manufacturer suffered a difficult return to the sport last season – finishing ninth in the constructors' championship with just nine points – and Hulkenberg is aware of the hard road ahead.

"I'm not at all nervous actually, no. I'm excited. Yeah there's a lot of work in front of us but I find that exciting. I know what they're doing and what the shorter-term and longer-term plan is. It sounds encouraging to me."

While Hulkenberg was able to race at Le Mans when driving for Force India in 2015 – and duly won the 24 Hours on his debut (pictured, LAT photo) – he says he won't be doing the same with Renault for the foreseeable future, despite last year's controversial calendar clash between Le Mans and the new European GP in Baku having been resolved for 2017.

"No, that's not going to happen," Hulkenberg replied when asked if the Renault switch would allow him to do Le Mans again. "Not in the next few years. I still would like to do it some day but with last year's calendar anyway... 2015 I think the calendar was a bit more relaxed. Things were getting more and more so you need to really be sure that you can do both. I think it's good the way it is. I can always go back a bit later."