Nico Hulkenberg - The Forgotten Man of Motorsport?

[gamer19]

Love the dude, he deserved some better teams in his peak but guess this is another case of of being good diver at a wrong team (at that time). Something like Alesi.
But he got a share of his own missed opportunities.
Like that Germany last year. Was it last year ?
These days years seems to fly pass me.

 

[Navoan]

Haas were silly to not replace one of their drivers with him

Haas was never an option for him i'm afraid.
Kevin Magnussen is the unofficial first driver of Haas and Kevin and Nico can't work together, they had several incidents in the past and dislike each other..

But nevertheless its sad his out of F1, a few years ago, with a better car, he could be a top tier driver.
He just never had the proper car, to show his real qualities.

 

[EduCalza]

Sad to see he going...He deserved a tier 1 team, in my opinion. Good luck Nico.

 

[farjam]

AS much as i like him and i like to see him in F1 but F1 moved on, also he moved on.
literally a few mins ago :

His face is literally saying it's done

Getting back to F1 and being successful after a retirement (or being unemployed in F1) doesn't work for mortal drivers...

 

[j_troc_71]

I don't see much for Nico out there in 2020. DTM is a mess and could be in its final year. No LMP1 seats available, although Ginetta should consider Nico. 2020 Formula E isn't going to happen. I'm not sure he would even do it, but I've got to think Nico could find an LMP2 ride for Lemans if he wanted too. Slim pickins' at the moment. Sadly.

 

[F_B]

Imo a bad mistake by Hulk not to race in Indycar, a strong series with great cars and tracks and where the driver makes a difference and not the car in that extent as in F1.

 

[safi hellie]

The best driver to go unsigned, IMO. Williams could have really used him, Haas were silly to not replace one of their drivers with him, and I honestly think Alfa Romeo should have transitioned Giovinazzi to a reserve role for him. But, there is one knock on him... father time. While still in his prime, albeit the end, teams know it would likely be a short stint. Couple that to the fact that everyone is looking for the next Lewis, I don't think he ever stood a chance. He's a known commodity, they know he will extract 98% of what the elite will get out of a car, but most of them are looking for a grand slam.

Well actually most are looking for someone bringing Daddy's money or big sponsor money...

 

[BP]

Nico Hulkenberg lost his drive in Formula One with Renault at the 2019, and since then the highly regarded German has been rather quiet on his plans for this season... where do you think the 32-year-old will end up?

Many (myself included) touted Hulkenberg as a potential race winner following his explosive debut with Williams during the 2010 season, the young German driver looking every bit the champion-in-waiting with plenty of composed performances behind the wheel of a solid Williams Cosworth FW32 - however the following nine years would be difficult ones for the tall German, with no podiums to his name before departing Grand Prix racing at the end of last year.

One of the more likely destinations for a post-F1 Hulkenberg looked to be the DTM championship in his native Germany, however unless he secures a surprise drive for an unconfirmed customer team, that avenue looks to be all but over so close to the start of the new season. With DTM seemingly off the table, and Hulkenberg long having said IndyCar racing holds no interest to him, nor does a reserve role in Formula One, not much on the international scene remains open for the experienced driver to turn his hand towards in the year ahead.

Without space on the 2020 Formula One grid, and with many of the top seats in alternative series already wrapped up, what next for one of the best drivers who failed to achieve a top three finish in Formula One?

View attachment 350645

Wait...but this is Nico's opportunity to truly shine at last, forget the naysayers, it's all built up to this moment...






...oh, and by Nico I mean:

 

[BrainsBush]

I miss Nico especially when he was interviewed by Dutch Ziggo (Olav Mol). Always in for some jokes and being very honest pre and post race.

 

[BrunoBæ]

Haas was never an option for him i'm afraid.
Kevin Magnussen is the unofficial first driver of Haas and Kevin and Nico can't work together, they had several incidents in the past and dislike each other..

This is in plain words completely wrong.
There was a time in 2019 where Hulkenberg was considered a possible replacement for "one of the Haas drivers".
This was afterwards acknowledged by Haas teammanager Gunter Steiner - after Grosjeans 2020 season had been officially secured.

At the same time Kevin Magnussen gave several interviews where he without any reservations(!) acknowledged that as a driver he considered Hulkenberg very skilled and experienced.
And he would himself have absolutely no reservations being teammate with Hulkenberg.

CatsAreTheWorstDogs: And he further added with a grin that if not the medias urgently needed to have some extra drama and personal rivallery between drivers the "ball incident" would have been completely forgotten.

 

[Eckhart von Glan]

In the 70s, with one, two or three drivers dying each year, sadly there was always a lot of shuffling in and out of all race series. Very glad this is over, but it leaves the series clogged with older guys. DTM at one point had almost every third driver on the grid being an ex-champion. There should be a rule somewhere you can only ever win a championship three times to get some better circulation into the systems.
For the Hulk it's just very bad luck that both DTM and the WTCR are forced to downsize at exactly the wrong time for him. I also hope he might show up in the long distance GT3 races, like him a lot.

 

[Eckhart von Glan]

this from the GT challenge (Blancpain GT3) page:
"Sainteloc Racing is set for another busy campaign in 2020, with the French squad preparing to run as many as three full-season cars in GT World Challenge Europe Powered by AWS.
The team will continue its relationship with Audi Sport this term, with three R8 LMS GT3s entries planned for the Sprint Cup. The Endurance Cup programme will feature either two or three cars, with two set to be on the grid for the Total 24 Hours of Spa. In each case, there will be at least one Sainteloc machine chasing overall honours.
Line-ups are yet to be confirmed, …"
Could someone give them Nico's number?

 

[Jan Larsen]

Tbh I'd already forgotten about him. But now that you mention it; either FE as its an rejected F1 drivers backup plan for nearly everyone, DTM as its about the same just to a smaller extent or GT racing. Personally, if I were him, I'd go for GT racing as the racing is great. He dosent need more money, thats secured, so I think GT racing would be the most fun for him.

 

[Andrew Harper]

I think it all depends on what he wants.

He joined Renault as he thought that being with a works team would be a guarantee for success. Unfortunately Renault seem to be in the wildness in exactly the same way they were the last time they were a works F1 team and again in 2020 the car looks like it's an uphill struggle again.

So the results he expected, never happened and in some way he was probably happy just to walk away.

I've found in the past that there are two type of F1 drivers, those that are complete petrol heads and simply love to race after F1 (Rubens is one example I can think of) and there are others who don't get a buzz from anything else and simply want to walk away and enjoy the sunshine and life away from F1, maybe develop their own businesses, etc.

I kind of got the impression from interviews with Nico that he sounded like he was done. Dismissed endurance, dismissed Indycar, wasn't interested in GT racing, etc.

However it will be interesting to see if he does appear in anything this year but as others have mentioned above it's more likely a 2021 situation I feel.

 

[Ghoults]

In F1 it is sometimes notoriously difficult to rate the midfield drivers at times. Nico is however in my opinionnot one of those drivers. You know he is not the next world champion and with simple comparisons between him and his team mates he is always close but has been beaten by all of his better team mates (with the exception of Sainz). He has also had some weak team mates like Gutierrez and Palmer which I think has allowed him to hide away a little.. He is a sort of non-flashy driver and it seems really unexceptional.

He had a great thing going before he got into f1 and in Willi Weber I think he also had a good manager who could get him into a good seat. Something must have happened at that transition phase from gp2 to F1. Maybe he relied too much on his natural talent and when he got into f1 everybody have natural talent. The work is what makes a difference. To me the biggest issue in his career is his loss to barrichello in his first F1 season. His missed opportunities in F1 racing results also go deeper than missed podiums. On several occasions he should have won the team mate battle in his team but didn't.

 

[Martin Maaskant]

Love the man but not so impressed by the driver. He had some bad luck and he messed up at crucial moments in his career. The latest is his DNF in Germany last year. I hope he finds a seat in a car that meets his talent. WEC should work.

 

[Ross McGregor]

In the 70s, with one, two or three drivers dying each year, sadly there was always a lot of shuffling in and out of all race series. Very glad this is over, but it leaves the series clogged with older guys. DTM at one point had almost every third driver on the grid being an ex-champion. There should be a rule somewhere you can only ever win a championship three times to get some better circulation into the systems.
For the Hulk it's just very bad luck that both DTM and the WTCR are forced to downsize at exactly the wrong time for him. I also hope he might show up in the long distance GT3 races, like him a lot.

F1 has a comparatively young grid for a top-line FIA world championship. In fact, 2019 was the youngest grid in F1 history, so the series is hardly clogged with 'older guys'. You have Kimi at 40, then Hamilton at 35, but after that i would say the rest of the drivers are at their peak or still developing. (although you could argue Hamilton is still at his peak)
The reality is Hulkenberg is trying to compete for a small number of race seats against some very good and deeply-ingrained drivers, and it looks like his best bet will be to focus on opportunities in 2021, when guys like Vettel, Hamilton, Raikonen & Bottas will be out of contract. (plus others) Will be interesting to see who gets signed up, who gets promoted, and who completely leaves F1! (and who comes back... Alonso? Hulkenberg?)

Intriguing.

 

[Vtecb18a]

Wait...but this is Nico's opportunity to truly shine at last, forget the naysayers, it's all built up to this moment...






...oh, and by Nico I mean:








View attachment 351277

you are a legend lmao

 

[michelforest]

I have always felt that he could not quite match the hype that accompanied his arrival in F1. He was described as the next Schumacher... Turned out, he never achieved a performance that made me go « Wow! ». I see him as another Bottas: give him a really fast car and he’ll win a race or two, but WC? Hmmm...

I always wondered if the reason he was never signed by a top team was because team owners didn’t rate him as high as the fans and the press did?

 

[Deleted member 205301]

He should have followed the advice from Kevin Magnussen when Hulkenberg interrupted Magnussens interview

haha he maybe should do it, but with a team'manager, not with kevin^^ (wait, harvey wenstein is not a team manager^^)