Hulkenberg loses faith in Haas F1 project. Nico Hulkenberg is a Formula One enigma. Born in August 1987 he is a German racing driver who drives for the Haas F1 Team. He was the 2009 GP2 (now F2) Series champion, and is a previous champion of both the Formula 3 Euro Series and A1 Grand Prix, as part of A1 Team Germany. 

The German is one of just six drivers since 2005 to win the GP2 Series/Formula 2 championship in his debut season. Outside of Formula One, he won the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2015 on his first attempt and also contested two rounds of the 2015 FIA World Endurance Championship season for Porsche.

 

 

 

Elephant in the room

BUT! There’s the proverbial elephant in the room whenever Hulkenberg’s name is mentioned – that thing – the unmentionable… the dreaded stat which says Nico has now over 200 race starts and not a single podium. With 211 race starts, should Hulkenberg fail to win a race before the 2024 Spanish Grand Prix, he will claim another F1 chart topping list of shame overtaking Andrea de Cesaris as the driver with the most F1 races with no win.

Hulkenberg’s announcement last night that he was joining the Sauber/Audi project starting next year, was hardly a surprise to the F1 world. TJ13 reported weeks ago that the parties had agreed terms despite much of the clamour being about the potential of a Sainz/Audi hookup.

And indeed Hulkenberg is the perfect choice of driver given Audi want to start with a fresh driver line up. He can play the number one role, should Audi fail to tempt Carlos Sainz, or slot in alongside the Spaniard if asked to do so.

Leaving Haas F1 was a no brainer given the perennial lack of funds the team is forced to suffer year on year. Gene Haas stated he does not want to change the ‘sub-contractor’ model his team developed when joining F1 and so there is no hope of the investment required to build a permanent base fully kitted out with the equipment required to design and build an F1 car.

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Haas rescued hulk’s F1 career

Having been dropped by Renault in favour of Daniel Ricciardo, Nico Hulkenberg spent the best part of three years outside F1 before Guenther Steiner persuaded Gene to change his driver policy.

“I would like to express a special thank you to the entire Haas F1 Team, especially Gene (Haas) and Guenther (Steiner), for placing their trust in me 1.5 years ago and making a comeback in F1 possible,” said Hulkenberg in a statement.

“I will do everything I can in the remaining 19 races to be as successful as possible.”

New Haas team principal Ayao Komatsu expressed his gratitude to Hulkenberg for claiming valuable points in Saudi Arabia, Australia and China and is in no doubt the German will push hard for the rest of this year’s campaign.

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German driver with German auto brand

“I’d like to extend my thanks to Nico for his contributions to the team in the time that he’s been here with us,” said Komatsu. “He’s been a great team player and someone we very much enjoy working with.

“His experience and feedback have proved invaluable to us in terms of improving our overall performance, a fact that’s clearly evident in both his qualifying and race performances in the VF-24 this season.

“There’s lots more racing to go this year so we look forward to continuing to benefit from his inputs throughout the remainder of the 2024 season.”

Audi by way of contrast have plenty of investment going into their F1 project and a German driver with a German auto brand is a match made in heaven and signing Hulkenberg is no second best option for Audi.

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As a replacement for Zhou, Hulk makes sense

Since joining Haas F1 Nico has done much of the heavy lifting in terms of outscoring Kevin Magnussen on a consistent basis. In qualifying the German is also well ahead of his team mate which makes him an attractive proposed for Audi.

The big question is whether Audi will land Carlos Sainz having made him an offer Dr. Helmut Marko said Red Bull could not “match.” Sainz best option is to wait for the Red Bull driver lineup sort itself out but Christian Horner has warned this may take until the summer, despite Perez’s prediction of a few weeks.

As a replacement for Zhou Guangu, Hulkenberg makes a lot of sense, but if Sainz accepts the Audi offer, he will be ousting Valtteri Bottas who it could be argued has a wider skill set than Hulkenberg.

Update: Decisions from latest F1 commission

 

 

 

Bottas a better all rounder

When Daniel Ricciardo left Red Bull to join Renault he teamed up with Hulkenberg and it was obvious who was the quicker and better all round driver. Similarly at Force India, the comparison with Sergio Perez did not flatter the German and over their time together Checo managed four podiums – as stated Hulkenberg has none.

When racing alongside Lewis Hamilton, Bottas proved on his day he could be quicker than the eventual seven times world champion. Whilst Nico may be on average quicker over one lap, Bottas has a back catalogue of more robust Grand Prix performances.

Hulkenberg is an upgrade on Zhou, but Valtteri??? 

Sauber ditches Bottas and Zhou

 

 

 

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