Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsLe Mans

Hulkenberg: Le Mans win vindicates talent

Nico Hulkenberg believes his victory in the Le Mans 24 Hours shows his talent is being masked by uncompetitive cars in F1.

The Force India driver has one pole position to his name in a Formula One career which so far has also taken in Williams and Sauber. Having yet to finish on the podium in F1, Hulkenberg won only his second World Endurance Championship race driving for Porsche at Le Mans on Sunday, the first active F1 driver to win at Le Mans since 1991.

Asked by F1i if his victory feels like vindication of his talent, Hulkenberg replied: “Yes, I think so.

“We had a car capable of winning and we did it, but that’s not just down to me. I have two great team-mates who also did an amazing job and this is not a sport where it comes down to one individual, you need everybody in it to be successful. Yeah, those 24 hours just went really well for us.”

And Hulkenberg admits he enjoyed being part of a race where the pace was close to the limit for the majority of the time from lights to flag.

“It was good, I enjoyed every moment. I had fun out there, these cars are fun to drive - especially round here on a big track like this. For a 24 hour race the pace was really high, we were pushing a lot like you would not believe I think if you think about endurance and a 24 hour race. But it was possible, the car was really good, especially later at night when temperatures came down a bit. So yeah, it was fun.”

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.