Nico Hulkenberg: More Than Just The Numbers

13 years of racing zero wins and zero podiums to the untrained eye this is the career of a driver that has lacked in driving ability and used mediocracy from the moment he had entered Formula 1 a couple of examples being pay drivers such as Rio harano and Nicholas latifi or just those who were unable to have Stand Out performances in poor Machinery such as Marcus Erikson however there is one outlier to this rule Nico hulkenberg for the majority of his career he has been a solid Midfield driver with quick qualifying pace and good race Pace but he's just been unable to claim a podium or race win he is the driver that holds the unenviable record of most starts without a race win with 208 in counting hopefully this doesn't age as badly as my nor prediction I need to get this SP out before he wins case in point he has stayed on the grid for 13 years and had just joined s to take part in Audi's 2026 projects which will'll see him stay with the German team for at least 2 years so let us look at the highs and lows of Hulk's career and ultimately what led Ali to take him onto their project in lie of his results in F1 and if you are new to the Channel please like the video it really does help the algorithm deliver of my video to new people and if you like my content feel free to subscribe so hello everyone I'm tmw F1 and let's take a look at Niko hulkenberg Nicholas hulkenberg was born on the 19th of August 1987 in West Germany hul wenberg was one of the drivers that you just knew throughout his Junior career that he was going to make it to Formula 1 when looking at his junior formula record his carting accolades consists of the German Junior carting championship and the German cart Championship he made his car racing debut in the formula BMW Series in 2005 ahead of future F1 Talent Sebastian Wy and part-time Chinese formula 4 driver Sergio Perez the next year he contested in the A1 Grand Prix series which is essentially an attempt at a de facto World Cup for racing as drivers raced under their represented countries this felt horribly and was canceled after 4 season hulkenberg Chann his inner 2014 Germany and won the series with nine wins cooking the whole grid and scoring more points than the team in second place in 2007 he contested in European F3 finishing third behind two very underrated future F1 drivers orbe it one more crash B than the other Roman gron and K kobashi in 2008 he won the series with seven wins promoting a move to gp2 the modern day F2 and a test with Williams Racing however he first contested in the gp2 Asia series which is more of an offseason Championship he missed two rounds on only could finish P six but then came the main gp2 series hulkenberg absolutely destroyed everyone in that Championship with a grid consisting of nine future F1 drivers this prompted Williams Racing to do some scouting and on the 2nd of November 2009 hulkenberg was announced as an Williams F1 driver alongside veteran Ruben's Barak Kell on the back of a very successful 2009 with borne GP if there was a single word I could use to describe niiko hulkenberg's rookie season in Formula 1 it would be the term mid the 2020 Williams was such a solid Midfield car in the hands of both drivers but Ruben just had the edge on him during the races in Bahrain he spun on the opening few laps and eventually finished P4 his first points didn't come until the third round in Malaysia where he qualified P5 ahead of his teammate and eventually finished P10 his best finish in 2010 was P6 at the Hungarian Grand Prix but overall he was usually beaten in qualifying and in the Races by his teammate Barak Kell there was but one notable achievement in his rookie season that made everyone stand up and take notice car felt good I had a good Rhythm and I was just pushing as hard as I could and my engineer told me I have a good Pace um but then you know I expected when he came on the radio that he said yeah you're pp5 P6 you know the usual stuff but then he said you're po position niik hulkenberg taken pole in a wet Q3 session by a second in a Williams it was an insane result to achieve especially in rookie season and there was no doubt that Nik was a rising talent in F1 he finished four places below his teammate in p14 over the season but his first season was one of getting settled in F1 and getting used to the C so Williams in their absolute wisdom drops him for 2011 to this day I don't understand why this action was taken by Frank Williams especially as soon as the race after he got P well one must assume that Hulen B would be replaced by someone better than him as a driver right right [Music] Williams had replaced hulkenberg with Pastor malardo a man who hulkenberg drove alongside in the 2009 gp2 Championship so surely they must have you know been in a title battle together right no hulkenberg beat malardo by 64 points I don't know what was going on in that Williams garage but that decision must have been made by the same people who officiate VA because that stinks of pgmol right there moving on before I suffer a brain anism in 2011 hulkenberg left Williams to join force India as a reserve and test driver competing in the majority of fp1 sessions for 2012 he was promoted to a fulltime seat after the demotion of Adrien SLE to reserve driver the 2012 Force Ina was a fairly decent Midfield car but also had the unfortunate timing of being in possibly the tightest Midfield of all time with the eighth fastest car to even the top three not being separated by much in some races hulkenberg had a pretty decent time in the force India managing to beat his teammate Desta by 17 points during the 2012 season hulkenberg had the best finish of P4 at the Belgian Grand Prix after being overtaken by riken and Neta whilst running P2 he finished the championship in P1 having up a pretty good season but the good drives that he completed would forgotten due to One race it was the final round of the 2012 Championship Fernando Alonzo sapped 14 points a drift from the Red Bull of Sebastian vettle hulkenberg qualified P6 after malardo was given a grid penalty go figure the lights go out and immediately vus spun and drops down the order hulkenberg ends lap one in P5 five laps later and he's in P3 after overtaking Fernando Alonzo he then overcuts the McLaren of Hamilton overtook the other McLaren of button to lead the Brazilian Grand Prix this lead lasted 38 laps and the Gap was 45 yes 45 seconds until the safety car was called out and then Hamilton re overtook him for the lead but NCO was hungry for his first win finally there was an opportunity on lap 55 and then he crashed into Hamilton as a result he was given a drive-through penalty and ended up finishing fifth with his resultant safety card giving Buton the win and battle the championship All Things Considered though it was an amazing drive from hulkenberg whose Pace was staggering in the car that finished seventh in the world Constructors Championship just before season's end it was announced that hulkenberg would leave Force the India and move to Sala to replace the departing Sergio Perez who moved to McLaren in response the Hamilton's move to replace the retiring Michael Schumaker at Mercedes his one-ear stint at subo's pretty decent the c-32 was not as high as flying as the c-31 but hulkenberg extracted all that he could out of the car and absolutely demolished his teammate estang Gutierrez scoring 51 points compared to his teammate 6 his standout performances Kan at Kota qualifying P4 and finishing P6 Japan finishing P6 again Italy qualifying P3 and only being overtaken by the two Ferraris of Alonzo and mastera to finish P5 and his joint best finish in F1 starting PA at the South Korean Grand Prix but executing a brilliant strategy coupled with great defending to finish P4 he scored points 10 times over the course of the year and ended the season in P10 which at that point was his best finish in F1 then force India who had seen how much hulkenberg had improved his racecraft came calling and he was resigned for 2014 alongside Sergio Perez the year was 2014 and hulkenberg was back at force India there was a massive overhaul of the regulations such as the changes of the chassis and the front noes for the worst and the most notable of all the V8 engines being swwa for V6 Turbo Hybrid engines now as you all know this engine chain benefited the Mercedes cars greatly as they had the most efficient engines and it just so happened that force India were a Mercedes customer team meaning that the car straight line speed was improved exponentially 2014 was a breakthrough a year for hulkenberg in terms of establishing himself as one of the best Midfield drivers in Formula 1 he finished P6 at Melbourne after Daniel Ricardo was disqualified and Then followed that up with a run of nine consecutive points finishes including four p5s a P6 and a p7 in a grid where the pace deficit was minimal between the second fastest car and the sixth fastest car at one point hulkenberg sat P3 in the driver's Championship four rounds in only behind the two Mercedes cars unfortunately towards the end of 2014 the pace of the car slightly dropped off but hulkenberg only finished out the points twice and had two retirements alongside that he absolutely demolished his new teammate Sergio Perez finishing with 96 points compared to Perez's 59 and finished the 2014 World drivers championship in a career best Ninth Place this earned him a 2-year contract with force India unfortunately 2015 was not successful as the year prior for hulkenberg at least in F1 he finished p7 in Australia but then embarked in a five race pointless streak which only ended at Canada That season his best finish was a P5 in wza his only top five finish of the Season he was beaten by a resurgent Sergio perz who managed managed to score two podiums and finish 20 points ahead of Hackenberg it may seem that this year was a failure but he saved the season in the most extraordinary way he competed in the lmp1 class of lemon and won the 24 hours of lemon A's first attempt for Porsche beating former F1 race winner and permanent number two driver Mark Weber and future F1 failure and lon's farm of Brendan Harley in the other Porsche it was an emphatic Victory which many have called the highlight of his racing career for 2016 rumors started to circulate that hulkenberg was unsettled within force India and wanted to leave the team with potential candidates being Renault or McLaren 2016 was much like 2015 being beaten once again by Sergio Perez by 29 Points this time his best finish of the season was people at the Belgian Grand Prix after being overtaken by Hamilton and Ricardo another highlight was qualifying on the front row for the Austrian Grand Prix after nicoo rosberg was given a five Place grid penalty but he had to retire from the race with break issues he also lost the potential Podium at the Monaco Grand Prix when running a comfortable P3 got caught in traffic after his pit stop and eventually finish P6 with his teammate Perez finishing on the podium instead after retiring from the Singapore Ry hulkenberg announced that he would be leading force India for the newly revamped Renault outfit he kept off his time at force India with a run of Seventh Place finishes equaling his best world drivers Championship finish in P9 and helping force India to finish fourth in the championship 2017 had rolled around and there were brand new regulations that had been brought to the formul one grid the chassis and ties were made wider the cars decreased in height and the downfalls of the cars were increased significantly allowing for some of the fastest effort one cast world has ever seen in 2016 the Renault F1 team was a back marker suffering the decline of the lowest F1 team it had inherited with the new regulations it was thrust firmly into the Midfield again and was amongst the force indias hes and Williams cars hulkenberg's teammate for 2017 would be jodian Palmer yes the guy from the F1 analysis videos was actually an F1 driver 7 years ago crazy right it's like if the pundit P Desta was an F1 dri oh wait he drove in 2017 too back to my point hulkenberg's teammate was Palmer fortunately for Hulen jolian took after his dad Jonathan parner meaning he was [ __ ] this unfortunately meant that Rena had a hard time scoring contractus points hulkenberg carried the team on his back scoring Five Points finishes in the first 10 races including two P6 finishes at Spain and Britain he also scored 34 points to Palmer zero during that time unfortunately hulkenberg can't have a good season without a Podium fumble at the aaban Grand Prix he was running P6 when he hit the wall and eventually retired this was whilst being ahead of eventual Podium sitter and rookie L STW who finished third at the Singapore Grand Prix the Rena management had finally had enough and announced that Palmer will be replaced by Toro Roso driver Carlos times from the USA Grand Prix onwards ironically Palmer finished P6 that race come the US Grand Prix and SS had have replace Palmer for the rest of the 2017 season hulkenberg failed to finish from the Japanese Grand Prix to the Mexican Grand Prix which was Then followed up by a p7 at Brazil and a P6 finish at Abu dhab to allow Ren to overtake to Roso in the standings for P6 a vast improvement from P9 the year prior hulkenberg finished P10 on 43 points scoring 75% of the team's points but it must be noted that signs finished ahead of him in an inferior car and he was far better caliber of a driver than Palmer in 2018 Rena made another jump up the grid this time the car Pace had improved to the upper Midfield now with a strong and stable lineup of hulkenberg and signs breno were here to make a statement on the grid hulkenberg made a massive impact at the start of 2018 finishing in p7 and P6 twice in the first three races and then came the asab rrey and just like last year it appears that Nico cannot have a good season without a Podium fumble he started in P4 made his way up to P5 within 10 laps and then hit the wall in a carbon copy of last year's race this is starting to get extremely depressing now his luck would not improve with him being absolutely discombobulated by gron on lap one he then had a run of top 10 finishes excluding Austria from Monaco to Germany finishing P6 at the British Grand Prix and P5 at his home race the German Grand Prix he then only scored one point until the USA Grand Prix the RSA team was a weird car in 2018 having Pace closer to the Red Bull in some races and having Pace closer to Williams cards and others he ended the season with two P6 finishes at Kota and Mexico and suffer two retirements to end the season being a Gran's victim for the second time that season at Abu Dhabi despite this he ended the season in p7 best of the rest and his best finish in F1 today finishing two places above his teammate it was an amazing return to form for hulkenberg which put him on the map for potential top teams who were looking for drivers luck finally seemed to be on hulkenberg's side and then 2019 happened 2019 rolled around and it was all changed down at Rena Carlos signs departed to for McLaren to replace the retiring Alonzo who decided he wanted to raise until the age of 72 years later replacing signs was an informed Daniel Ricardo who was tired of the poor reliability in the Rena engine in the Red Bull and so left reel to join REO I can't believe he did this what what was in his head this would be a real Testament of hulkenberg's talent as Ricardo contrary to 2024 was one of the fastest drivers on the grid but it was expected that Hulen would ride to the challenge as he always does but the thing is he never did he finished p14 on 34 points five places and 20 points below his teammate Ricard who had just joined the team it was an absolutely wretched for hulkenberg with a couple of p7s and P5 at Monza being his main highlight but the One race that stood out to me has to be Germany 2019 hulkenberg qualified P9 and began the race under extremely wet conditions he slowly made up his way to P4 whilst drivers around him slid off track most notedly Perez cler and Hamilton he then pitted for slick and came out in P2 behind the stappen hulkenberg was in a great position with the Mercedes cars not firing up their tires in The Damp conditions and Alor being a buffer in the tour or alsoo to hold back vettle all he had to do was keep it on track there is the Renault of Nik hulkenberg and he's ending his home Grand Prix in the barriers and another car on lap 34 he dipped her whe into the wet drag strip and became beach in the gravel and that was it another chance for a Podium his best chance in seven years gone just like that not only was he devastated the team principal of Rena SRO bble took a very hard stance on hulkenberg's plethora of Miss chances and two races later it was announced that nicoo hulkenberg will be dropped for estan oam at the end of the season it was a truly humbling and Tor season for hulkenberg from best of the rest in 2018 to drop from the team in 2019 a lot can change in a year 2020 was a strange year for everyone in F1 not only did we start the season in the middle of June we also had to do with the prospect of no fans at races which hugely deflated the atmosphere on and off track hulkenberg seemed to be enjoying life Off the Grid with him spending time with his family and children and not particularly doing anything racing related apart from signing as Reserve driver for racing Point whether that was down to the pandemic or just his decision we will probably never know but there was one incident that was about to throw Hulk's career back into gear at the British Grand Prix Sergio Paris had tested positive for covid-19 a replacement for him was needed and a certain Nico hulkenberg just happened to be at Silverstone that weekend so he stepped in for the double-headed at Silverstone in his first outing hogenberg qualified p13 which was a good showing considering that this was his first F1 race in over 6 months however due to engine issues he was unable to start the race but at his second attempt at the track next round something incredible happened hulkenberg had qualified P3 for the first time since 2016 beating out the likes of his teammate stroll the two McLarens and the Renault cars and also Max for stappen in a Red Bull he fell down the order due to Tire issues in the race and finish p7 but this was a showcase that he really didn't deserve to be out of a SE in F1 but then the Spanish GP rolled around and peris had recovered and hulkenberg was left without seat once again but then it happened again this time strw had contracted Co just after fb2 at the nurburg ring and hulkenberg was frantically flown out to get in the car he missed fp3 and only had q1 to get some lats in the car he qualified last obviously but was only 4/10 away from the cut off time for Q2 which is an amazing and extremely underrated feat in my opinion and what's better he fought his way to PA and points in the race earning him driver of the day I know that means nothing with Norris on the grid now but you know there's more things count straw had recovered for Portugal and this time hulkenberg really was out of the seat not for 2020 but for 2021 as well it looked as if hulkenberg's F1 career was over and then it happened again actually before I continue let me provide some context albor at Red W was being [ __ ] and Perez having won a race moved to Red Bull from 2021 onwards Sebastian vetal then moved to newly renamed Aston Martin to replace Perez and in 2022 he fell victim to co hulkenberg was drafted in for the first two races of 22 did he perform wonders like he did in 2020 no he finished 17th in Bahrain and 12th in Saudi Arabia before vetel had recovered after those races it finally seemed that hulkenberg was finished with F1 there were hardly any seats available on the grid and there was no chance of hingo joining Aston Martin who had signed Alonzo shortly after the piastri alpen ding however as the season dragged on arum started that Mick shimaka was to be ousted from H at the end of the season due to his frequent crashes and his poor performances it did seem to be just that a rumor it was very unlikely that the son of Michael schumacker would be kicked out of house after just two seasons it was just a pipe dream for wenberg right right the Hulk is back baby let's go on the 8th of November 2022 it was announced that Mick Shaka was to be dropped from the h F1 team as a result of poor performances it was quite a shock that has dropped a young driver especially the summer schumacker for a seemingly old hulkenberg and it was just assumed that this was a mistake and mix should have been given one more year personally I agreed at the time with this opinion due to how Shak is a late bloomer when it comes to racing series for example his F2 title win after 2 years but there was a lot of disdain amongst F1 fans who anticipated hulkenberg would do no better than chimaca did and oh boy how wrong we were in a h car which was in a word abysmal hulkenberg extracted the most he could out of the mobility scooter on pellis in qualifying he got the worst car on the grid into Q3 11 times over the course of 2023 insane feet this includes qualifying P4 at the Austrian sh and qualifying on the front row at the Canadian Grand Prix which still just blows my mind but tmw you may ask how come hulkenberg only scored nine points all season if he started in positions like those well there was one major issue with the bf23 as there had been for most HC cars since they joined in 2016 it absolutely destroys the tires whenever Hulen B managed to qualify in the top 10 he'll be in p15 by lap seven he only managed to score points at the wet Austria Sprint after being second for most of it before the tires fell off and the latest Podium funel of the list the 2023 Australian Grand Prix Grand this one is not his fault however it must still be counted Hulen bger qualified P10 as usual he had a decent race at one of the only tracks where his tires didn't add to the 1.5 kg missing from Russell's car but then his teammate who had had a stinker That season crashed into the wall three laps from the End Bring Out The Red Flag so the FIA using all of their six Collective brain cells restarted the group with two laps to go in the name of competition and not regarding anything else like how the rest of the grid were going to kill each other hey hey I've seen this one I've seen this one this is classic what do you mean you've seen this it's brand new the lights go out and immediately chaos in sees sign spins Alonzo the two Arin crash who would have thought Stoll goes off who would have thought and of Reason Sergeant crashed who would have thought at the end of all this chaos hulkenberg sat P4 behind ven Hamilton and SS another red flag came out and it was announced that the race would end behind the safety car SS got a penalty for destroying Alonzo and the final order was v stappen Hamilton and hulkenberg wait hulkenberg P3 did he finally do it after 12 years he finally got his moment the thing that plagued his whole career is what would have happened if the fio weren't [ __ ] instead they reverted the aut to the previous grid start as no one had passed sector one before they brought out the red flag and Hackenberg was the mted to p7 this one was upsetting but mainly because it was none of his fault he only finished p16 in the championship his worst result to date but his qualifying performances and his team leadership meant that he could be proud of 2023 and finally his luck was about to improve for 2024 Steiner was released from the role of Team principal and IO kamatsu was drafted from within to lead the team forward the vf24 wasn't expected to be much due to how last year went but we were in for a surprise hulkenberg started where he left off qualifying P10 in barin but falling off in the race it looked to be the same season for hulkenberg but then he scored a point in Saudi Arabia then two in Australia one in China another two in Miami Sprint run of four P11 finishes then two backto back P6 finishes in Austrian Britain throughout this period he out qualified Sergio perz in the Red Bull the vf24 finally fixed its Tire problem and finally hulkenberg started to cook at the time of writing it is the summer break and hulkenberg currently sits P11 in the championship a massive upgrade from P3 so far it's been great we'll see how he finishes the rest of the season and now we wait we wait to see how Audi performs from 2026 onwards and how Hulk will work within the team at the start of the video I speculated as to why Ali had even chose hulkenberg not even really knowing myself now as I finish off this video I realize why it's his consistency and even more importantly his longevity hulkenberg is an extremely solid driver who's always been there or thereabouts on the grid since he joined F1 a new team such as Audi needs to have someone like hulkenberg to have a proper bearing on what a good driver is like furthermore the amount of experience and Driver knowledge that hulkenberg brings to the team is valuable as seen with h the cherry on top would have been to bring in science who has similar knowledge but at a top team but he has decided to go to Williams I really do hope that hulkenberg can succeed with Alan and maybe even grab that elusive podiums who knows a man can dream but what do you guys think of hulkenberg comment down your thoughts below about the man and his move to Audi despite how long it took to come out it was a pleasure making this video thanks for watching and goodbye [Music]