Nico Hulkenberg is relishing a “great opportunity” to show his calib🌄re against new teammate Daniel Ricciardo, acco✅rding to Renault chief Marcin Budkowski.

Having joined Renault at the start of 2017, Hulkenberg will go into his third season with the French manufacturer with a ⛦third different teammate having been partnered with Jolyon Palmer in 2017 and Carlos Sainz in 2018.

But with Ricc🌺iardo joining Renault for 2019, the German driver faces a teammate with a better record than his own with the Australian notching up seven Formula 1 race wins, 29 podiums ✤and three pole positions so far in his career.

Budkowski says Hulkenberg has welcomed Ricciardo to the team and is excited to prove himse꧅lf against an F1 race-winner at Renault.

“I think for Nico having Daniel coming in with his reputation as a verꦜy quick driver, a very good driver and a very good overtaker but also someone who has proved themselves as a race winner, I think he🎃 sees it as an opportunity to prove himself,” Budkowski said when asked by wuqian0821.com about Hulkenberg’s reaction to Ricciardo joining.

“His reaction wasn’t at all unhappy that someone of the calibre of Daniel ꧑was coming. He was very happy about it and he feels it is a great opportunity for himself to show what he’s capable of.

“I think we are going to have an interesting interaction in terms of two drivers that have never been competing against each otﷺher in the same team and that are both highly-rated. But I don’t ex🦩pect that to be a problematic relationship.”

Hulkenberg has the unwanted record of most F1 career starts without a podium, currently at 156 race starts, which Budkowski is eager to see ended to reward both t꧂he German and the team as it targets its firs✃t podium since its fully-fledged return to the sport as a factory entry in 2016.

Renaul🃏t’s last F1 podium as a constructor came at 🙈the 2011 Malaysian Grand Prix when Nick Heidfeld secured third place.

“I hope so for him and I hope so for us as well. It woul🔜d be good to see a car on the podium,” he said. “Unless there’s a big shake-up in terms of the pecking order it will have to be on specific race circumstances.

“Unless 🌱we have one of the two quickest cars on a regular basis it’s g🙈oing to be difficult to be on the podium.

“But certainly we need to be in a position that we are 🍌ready to grab any opportunity. There was one such opportunity last year and we weren’t there to grab it.

“We need to make sure that if there are opportunities to be on the podium this year that we are there an♛d the first to be able to grab them.”