Why there's more to Hulkenberg's F1 legacy than Brazil glimpses

Nico Hulkenberg recently admitted his Formula 1 days are over and that was a sad moment for me. Having commentated on him for 15 years, I remain baffled that an F1 podium escaped his skills.

The first time I observed him up close was at Zandvoort in 2006. The second season of A1GP began with Hulkenberg driving for Team Germany. He had won the 2005 Formula BMW championship in his home country before stepping up to the 550bhp Zytek-powered Lola single-seater without a blink.

When a thunderstorm hit the track, we discovered just how talented he was. Cars driven by experienced campaigners were half spinning or scrabbling through gravel traps, but Hulkenberg kept it all together in the rain and delivered a brilliant final stint on slicks to overcome local hero Jeroen Bleekemolen and claim victory.

He delivered eight more wins to earn the title for Germany, including a dominant victory by almost 43 seconds in the wet in Malaysia, to reinforce his remarkable talent. Hulkenberg went on to win the F3 Euro Series and GP2, was adopted by the Williams young driver programme and worked with junior race engineer Tom McCullough, now performance director at Aston Martin where Hulkenberg is currently reserve driver.

In 2010 they were both promoted, Hulkenberg joining Rubens Barrichello at Williams as McCullough became his F1 race engineer. Hulkenberg was confident, but soon realised that Barrichello’s ability and experience in F1 was not easy to overcome. However, it all came together in Brazil when he took his one and only pole position in tricky conditions.

“Everybody went out in Q3 on intermediates,” recalls McCullough. “The only thing I decided to do was to send him out first to get as many laps in as possible. A lot of people were half a lap out and in each other’s way.”

Hulkenberg's commitment in tricky conditions at Interlagos in 2010 earned him a brilliant pole

Photo by: Motorsport Images

So was it Hulkenberg or McCullough who chose slicks in the latter stages?

“Neither…it was Rubens!” McCullough continues.“I said to Nico ‘You are P6 and Rubens thinks dries are the thing’ and he replied ‘OK let’s give it a go’.”

The result was pole by over a second from the Red Bulls of Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber and, in McCullough’s opinion, Hulkenberg’s performance that day summed him up: “He drove it like he stole it. That lap typifies him as a driver; phenomenal car control and natural talent to be able to drive right to the peak of the tyre slip angles. He’s just naturally fast.”

"When Nico came back to us, he blew us away with how much more of a driver he was. The reason he was better was partly down to Daniel [Ricciardo] and what he had learnt from him" Tom McCullough

It's a view backed up by Hulkenberg's subsequent team-mate at Renault, Jolyon Palmer: “He has a very natural feel for grip and taking the car to the limit, rarely going over the top or making mistakes. He had the skills for a top team if he had been given a chance, but obviously it sort of passed him by.”

McCullough and Hulkenberg’s working relationship experienced a short interval in 2011 and 2012. Hulkenberg was displaced at Williams by the Venezuelan petro-dollars of Pastor Maldonado, so joined Force India as reserve in 2011. He then replaced Adrian Sutil in the race team for 2012, and shone with a near miss in mixed conditions in the final race of the season in Brazil. McCullough, still at Williams, was watching closely.

“I knew I would be working with Nico the following year at Sauber, so I was interested,” he remembers. “That race was the same; it was down to Nico. The pit crew had called him in several times to go to inters, but he said no. He decided to stay on slicks and at one point that gave him almost a lap over everyone else except Jenson Button.”

Sadly, it all went wrong later when a move to retake the lead from Lewis Hamilton ended in contact, a penalty and ultimately fifth place. It was the story of Hulkenberg's career: so near and yet so far. Over the next four years, the McCullough/Hulkenberg axis continued at Sauber and Force India, but opportunities continued to slip away.

Engineer McCullough rates Hulkenberg highly, but the opportunities in a top car never came his way

Photo by: Motorsport Images

“Sometimes we made strategic decisions which meant he was on target to finish on the podium,” says McCullough, “and then circumstances unravelled which denied him. In Monaco in 2016 Sergio Perez finished third, yet Sergio was nowhere near
 as quick all weekend.”

It was a similar story when Hulkenberg left McCullough’s camp and joined Renault in 2017. Third place in Singapore was lost through strategy and then mechanical problems, then Hulkenberg was on target for another fine finish at Hockenheim in 2019 in the wet, but a rare mistake led him to lose control on the infamous slippery ‘drag strip’.

Yet his time at Renault, especially in 2019 alongside Daniel Ricciardo, had a big effect on Hulkenberg, who briefly returned to work with Tom at Silverstone in 2020 as stand-in for Perez, after he had contracted COVID-19.

The call-up was late, and an engine problem denied Hulkenberg a start in the British Grand Prix, but he then qualified a remarkable third for
 the 70th Anniversary race at Silverstone
 the following weekend.

“When Nico came back to us, he blew us away with how much more of a driver he was,” says McCullough. “The reason he was better was partly down to Daniel and what he had learnt from him.

“It made me realise that Nico had lacked that experience and knowledge alongside him until then and he gained so much out of it. He’s a way better driver because of that.”

Sadly, we’re unlikely to see the much-improved Nico Hulkenberg compete in F1 again. But we can still celebrate a driver who gave his all to the sport – who combined talent with intelligence and never surrendered.

Hulkenberg was inspired on his return to Team Silverstone under its Racing Point guise at Silverstone last year

Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images