…What could’ve been as F1 champ says countryman “burned F1 bridges” missing out on Ferrari drive – Nico Hulkenberg is an all time Formula One record holder. The German born driver has now completed 227 Grand Prix starts in his career which began in 2010 which is the most ever by a driver without claiming a single podium finish.

His international career began with much promise as he won back to back GP3 and GP2 titles in 2008-9. He was recruited by Williams for the 2010 season to drive alongside the experienced Rubens Barichello who had been released by Mercedes following their acquisition of Brawn GP.

By round three in Malaysia, Nico looked upped to seed as he made it into the final session of qualifying outperforming his Brazilian team mate for the first time. With the new F1 scoring system introduced that year which saw points now awarded all the way down rot P10, Nico took the final points paying position at the end of the Grand Prix.

 

 

 

Rookie pole position – then sacked

Yet as the season progressed, as expected it was Barichello who proved to be the more consistent driver and come the autumn flyway races rumours began to emerge Nico was in danger of losing his seat to the heavily sponsored Pastor Maldonado.

Despite his uncertain future, Hulkenberg arrived in Brazil for the penultimate round of the year. In a rain affected qualifying, Hulkenberg blitzed the field in his Williams car to claim pole position some 1.049 seconds ahead of world champion elect Sebastian Vettel.

This was Williams first pole since the 2005 European Grand Prix in Germany although the underpowered Williams car was unable to defend against those quicker when the lights went out on Sunday, leaving Hulkenberg to finish in a respectable eighth place.

Next time out in Abu Dhabi, the mercurial team boss Frank Williams announced Nico Hulkenberg wold be dropped for the following 2011 season. This was to be the first of a number of occasions where Nico was forced to sit out an F1 campaign.

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Nico wins Le Mans

Hulkenberg was to return to F1 in 2012 with the Silverstone based Force India team, where he would spend most of his future career in the sport. In 2015, team boss Vijay Mallya sanctioned Hulkenberg to drive for Porsche in the annual Le Mans 24 hour race.

Along with Nick Tandy and Earl Bamber of New Zealand  Hulkenberg went on to win the race completing the 395 laps one ahead of their Porsche team mates in the sister hybrid 919 led by  Mark Webber.

Nico Hulkenberg became the first active F1 driver to win the famous French endurance race since Johnny Herbert back in 1991. Yet his F1 career failed to ignite as for season after season he plugged away with the reliable, but not particularly quick Force India outfit.

Then came Nico’s apparent big break, as the Renault owned works team offered him a drive for 2017. He blitzed his team mate Joylon Palmer by 43 points to 8 and was rewarded the following year with a renewed deal and a driver against the rising Carlos Sainz Jnr.

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Steiner revives Hulkenberg’s F1 hopes

Sainz won the battle of the team mates and was recruited by McLaren so Hulkenberg faced his third team mate in three years in the figure of Daniel Ricciardo. Both Sainz and the Aussie dispatched Hulkenberg with ease in their intra team battle for supremacy and come the 2020 season, Nico was again out of F1.

The role of reserve driver at his former Silverstone team, now named Racing Point, was on offer for the German driver which he gladly accepted and over the following three seasons he made cameo appearances as a replacement for Sergio Perez, Lance Stroll and Sebastian Vettel, all of whom were struck down with COVID-19.

Hulkenberg’s next big break came in 2023, when sick of experimenting with rookie drivers who brought huge financial support, Guenther Steiner, the team boss off Haas F1, demanded of his team owner a driver who would be competitive alongside Kevin Magnussen.

The Dane and the German had a bitter history which culminated in insults being traded following the 2017 Hungarian Grand Prix. During the race Magnussen had defended to the extreme against Nico, running the Renault driver off the track and onto the grass.

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The infamous “suck my balls” incident

During the post race interviews, Hulkenberg interrupted questions being posed to Magnussen, stating to the camera, “Once again, the most unsporting driver on the grid.” Yet it was the Haas driver who claimed the moment with his grinning reposes of “Suck my balls mate.”

The expected intra-team war between the Haas F1 drivers never came and in fact Kevin Magnussen racked up a number of visits to the stewards in 2024, where he was penalised for driving in a manner which created an incremental ten second gap ahead to Hulkenberg ahead in readiness for the German driver’s pit stops.

Now Nico Rosberg believes Nico Hulkenberg has not managed his F1 career in the best fashion possible stating to Sky F1 he “never lived up to the expectation” placed upon him.

“It’s unbelievable that Nico Hulkenberg has never been on the podium,” said the 2016 F1 champion. “He was the biggest talent coming up in Formula 3, Formula 2, and showed glimpses of absolute genius in Formula 1.

“But, somehow, [he] never lived up to that expectation, apart from again this year [2024], where he really seemed to be so special out there, maximising the car all the time. In qualifying, you would say he’s one of the best qualifiers from the whole grid this year, it’s been amazing to watch.

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Nico close ton Ferrari deal

Hulkenberg was rumoured to be close to a deal with Ferrari for the 2013 season, but the Scuderia bosses ultimately decided to retain Felipe Massa.

“If you show that you are one of the best, you will get to the lucky car, and he never really showed it,” observed Rosberg. “Plus, he was not the best socially, you know, social intelligence, working on the team bosses to get yourself in the right position, because he burned some bridges there, early in his career – that was one thing that he could have done better.”

Rosberg believes there were times during Hulkenberg’s career where he simply wasn’t good enough citing his time at Renault alongside a fading Daniel Ricciardo.

“And the other thing is that sometimes, he had these phases where he just wasn’t good enough, like Daniel Ricciardo beating him in Renault fair and square,” cites the former Mercedes’ driver. “And look at where Daniel Ricciardo is. Turns out he wasn’t the very best either.”

Hulkenberg has signed for Sauber-Audi for this year, although having been the rubbing rags of the F1 constructors in 2024, expectations for this season are minimal for the Swiss based outfit. In 2026 the team will be rebranded Audi and run as a works team for the German road car brand, yet even then the teams technical director, James Key, claims it may be 2027 before the integration between the parties is fully complete.

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Wolff wrapped Hamilton in “cotton wool”

Lewis Hamilton is now a Formula One driver for the most historic of the teams, Ferrari. The seven times world champion was clearly miffed with the paltry one year deal offered by the Silver Arrows and within weeks had put pen to paper with the Scuderia for a multi-year deal which runs currently to the end of 2026.

Of course as Daniel Ricciardo can testify to, no deal is guaranteed if a driver isn’t delivering the goods, yet things would need to go particularly wrong for Hamilton for him to be dismissed from Maranello.

Lewis tenure with Mercedes has been twelve long and predominantly profitable years as he became the first ever F1 competitor to win six championships with a single team. Yet since his calamitous last lap of the season efforts in Abu Dhabi back in 2021, Hamilton has looked a shadow of his former self clocking up his worst season last year since joining the sport back in 2007… READ MORE