Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsForce India

Hulkenberg frustrated by lack of big result

Nico Hulkenberg admits he is frustrated to not have scored a podium in his F1 career so far.

The German took pole position at the Brazilian Grand Prix at the end of his rookie season with Williams in 2010 but had to drop down to reserve driver at Force India a year later before regaining a race seat. In 94 starts Hulkenberg is yet to stand on the podium, and with a fourth place his best finish the German told F1i during an exclusive interview: “Of course that frustrates me.

“I don’t really think that you need to be taking more risks to achieve it, it’s just like you saw [in Russia] you need to be in the game. On that day I took more risks and I paid a price, a high price, so I failed on that day. It didn’t work, so I think you need to keep cool, obviously you need to have a certain grade of aggressiveness but still be calm. You just need to work hard.”

Hulkenberg cites the Russian Grand Prix this year as a missed opportunity as team-mate Sergio Perez went on to score his second podium for Force India and fifth overall.

Perez told F1i in August he would rather show flashes of potential thanks to sporadic big results while working to find consistency, and despite impressive consistency throughout his F1 career Hulkenberg admits: “I would prefer the flashes as well.”

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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.