In Singapore, Hülkenberg had initially qualified 9th but as teammate Daniel Ricciardo had been disqualified from qualifying as his car exceeded the MGU-K power limit, he started the race in 8th. In the race, Hülkenberg was involved in a first lap collision with former teammate Carlos Sainz Jr. Both drivers suffered punctures and had to pit on the first lap and fell to the back of the field. However, he managed to recover to 9th place for his 3rd points finish in a row. Hülkenberg started the next race in an impressive 6th place. However, his race was compromised by a bad start which left him outside the top 10. Having recovered to 9th place, the Renault pit crew dropped his car off the jack, which again dropped him out of the top 10. He eventually recovered to finish in 10th, overtaking Lance Stroll towards the end of the race. After the race, Hülkenberg said that "everything that could go wrong did go wrong". Further misfortune hit Hülkenberg in Japan. He was restricted to only 15th in qualifying, after a mechanical failure in Q2 meant he could not set a representative time to progress further. However, in the race he made a fantastic start and was up to 10th place by the end of the first lap and he would end up finishing the race in that position. However, following a protest by rival constructor Racing Point, both Renault cars were disqualified for having a pre-set automated brake bias system that was deemed to be a driver aid, and thus illegal. This was Hülkenberg's first disqualification in his entire F1 career.