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| Nico Hulkenberg 1st on the right celebrating his Le Mans win, the first of Porsche's since their return last year to the historic event. |
With Nico Hulkenberg's recent LeMans 24 hour win he has reminded everyone in F1 and the wider motorsport community of his potential and talent. I have been a long time fan of Hulkenberg's given his ability to take whatever F1 car he is driving and deliver its optimum potential plus more as shown by his consistent outperformance of every team mate he has raced against. Witness his current 24 points versus team mate Sergio Perez's 15 points - it doesn't seem a huge difference but when you are racing for the second half of the points paying positions (6th gets you 8 points, 7th: 6, 8th: 4, 9th: 2 and 10th 1), it reveals a wider gap in performance between the two drivers.
I have never understood why the likes of McLaren would plump for an overly expensive option such as Button when you have both experience and greater potential in an option such as Hulkenberg (plus he would be a great deal cheaper!) Being one of only three drivers to win the GP2 championship in their debut season (the other two being Rosberg and Hamilton), you would think greater stock would be placed on Hulkenberg. But the F1 fraternity has a notoriously short memory (who is talking about Robert Kubica anymore?) and an outstanding performance is often needed to remind them that a certain driver even exists.
Considering Hulkenberg's dominantion of all classes of motorsport outside of F1, it makes you wonder what the missing ingredient is that would give him the success he deserves in F1?? Comparing Nico to the likes of Hamilton and Vettel I would almost say that Nico is too nice and lacks the aggressiveness and a bit of drive to want to get ahead at all costs. Perhaps this makes him a better all round driver with consistent points finishes but a bit of aggressiveness is needed sometimes to secure a good result. Take his closest chance at a win to date, the 2012 Brazilian Grand Prix, a bit more aggressiveness could have fended off Hamilton (Youtube video here) and secured his first F1 win and gained the extra confidence needed to secure better performances subsequently.
Now there is an article about Hulkenberg being happy to bide his time before moving to one of the top teams and I think this illustrates a lack of drive - compare his comments to Senna who would have tolerated running in a midfield team as much as Alonso would tolerate having Hamilton as his team mate...
Come on Ron, kick out the past Champion Button and hire the future Champion Hulkenberg before someone else does!!
