Hülkenberg's misfortune continued at the next race in Spain. He went out in Q1 for the first time in 59 races due to a fuel pressure problem with his car. Then he was taken out by the spinning Romain Grosjean on the first lap of the race. Hülkenberg criticised Grosjean's driving following the crash, for which the Frenchman received a grid penalty for the next race. In Monaco, Hülkenberg was outqualified by a teammate by merit for the first time since the 2016 Japanese Grand Prix. Nevertheless, he finished the race in 8th, having started in 11th, with his teammate Sainz obeying team orders late in the race to let him past. He followed this up with another point-scoring finish in Canada after qualifying and finishing the race in 7th. The next three races made up Formula One's first ever triple header in France, Austria and Britain. Hülkenberg finished 9th in France, followed by a retirement from 9th in Austria with an engine failure. It was his 3rd retirement in 6 races and his 7th retirement in his last 16 races. However, he finished the triple header on a high, finishing 6th at the British Grand Prix. Hülkenberg achieved his best ever result for Renault at his home grand prix in Germany with 5th place, overtaking Kevin Magnussen late on when the rain started to fall. After a refuelling problem limited him to only 13th on the grid, he finished 12th at the Hungarian Grand Prix. Nevertheless, he entered the summer break with 52 points and 7th in the championship as the effective leader of the midfield, which many drivers had started to dub the B championship of Formula 1 or 'Formula 1.5', due to very large gap in performance to the top three teams of Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull.