Nico Hulkenberg: Back in the spotlight

F1 stories that warm the heart cockles have been a bit thin on the ground lately, meaning anything contrary to the gloom slew really does leap out.

So it proved when Nico Hulkenberg won the Le Mans 24-hour race last month, with rivals queueing up to express goodwill – mixed with a hint of jealousy in some cases, one suspects – for the German, whose victory in the classic endurance race came at the first time of asking.

Besides offering a portal back to times when most big names were familiar with the Circuit de la Sarthe, Hulkenberg’s success, at the wheel of a Porsche 919 hybrid alongside Nick Tandy and Earl Bamber, also placed a spotlight back on the man himself.

The win was timely because it has seemed that time’s been passing him by; no longer a new kid in town (Max Verstappen is over a decade younger), The Hulk’s career has seemed destined to plateau. Yet all of a sudden it’s like he’s flavour of the month again.

It’s not entirely down to Le Mans: dovetailing very nicely has been Force India’s resurgence in form, which has seen them climb up to fifth in the constructors’ standings and teed up the introduction of their B-spec 2015 car at Silverstone. And if the British GP was anything to go by (Hulkenberg finished seventh, two places ahead of team-mate Sergio Perez) it’s the step forward in performance they’ve been looking for.

That much was academic when we sat down with Hulkenberg in the Silverstone paddock earlier in British GP week, but confidence was clearly high. "I feel good, I feel comfortable. Obviously good results boost your self-confidence – it’s a confirmation that you’re doing things right. But I’ll keep working hard and try to keep delivering."

Force India have tended to deliver early-season but that hasn’t been the case this year. For a start the VJM08 arrived late, with its drivers given limited testing, and the car itself – essentially a reworking of last year’s – had a crucial downforce deficit.

It was highlighted in Barcelona – a bellwether as far as aero is concerned and where Hulkenberg and Perez lined up 17th and 18th on the grid. That was May; yet by the end of June, Force India had leapfrogged Lotus. “No, we didn’t think that,” he replies, when asked whether he thought the jump was possible.

"That’s actually a nice surprise. We had a rough start to the season with the car coming out late and a whole lot of things: then you’re late with the learning of the car, you’re late developing and it’s a snowball effect.

"Melbourne was good, we scored some points straightaway but then afterwards we had a really difficult couple of races with no points; quite a big dry period.

"At that point, no-one expected us to be fifth. If somebody had said then, ‘You’ll be fifth at Silverstone with an update coming, would you take it?’ then yes we would have taken it!"

So with a new car – featuring, for the first time, aero updates developed in Toyota’s Cologne windtunnel – what are Hulkenberg’s expectations for the second half of the season? "It depends where these updates put us. It’s not easy to tell but definitely we want to be a consistent point contender – on merit.

"From our own strengths and not be lucky that others fail and we’re in the points, but that we’re strong enough to bring ourselves into that position."

As for the fighting talk from team boss Bob Fernley – that Force India can challenge Red Bull for fourth in the constructors’ championship – "that’s certainly very optimistic. I mean, Red Bull is still one of the biggest teams and they have a good car. They recently have not had the best run but I think that’s going to be tricky and tough".

With 'silly season' getting underway the likes of Ferrari, Hulkenberg’s former team, Williams, and the start-up Haas outfit have all been bandied as possible destinations.

Of course he’s been here before: most recently a couple of seasons ago, when the Scuderia were again said to be interested. Instead they plumped for Kimi Raikkonen, who he (or Valtteri Bottas or Daniel Ricciardo) might now replace. Then again…

Like calling an election result, making sense of the 'driver market' – that shadowy world of meetings in Swiss hotel suites, airport first-class lounges and the paddock itself – is tricky. Sometimes the outcome seems inevitable (Fernando Alonso heading back to McLaren) other times it comes out of nowhere (Sebastian Vettel leaving Red Bull). And if you want any indication from a driver then good luck…

…but there’s still an obligation to ask. Hulk’s more of a tennis man – he was at Wimbledon the day after the British GP – but as we’re now getting in an Ashes frame of mind, it’s time for a little probing around his (metaphorical) off-stump:

So has the phone been ringing more since your Le Mans victory? Have you noticed more interest from other teams?

NH: (mumbles) “No.”

But are you thinking about your future? Because it’s around about this time of the season when…

NH: “Of course I’m thinking about it.”

Is it a better position to be in than, say, 2012 or 2013?

NH: “I wouldn’t say so. I let you guys do the speculation. I’m just quietly working away in the background, keeping on my job and hopefully keeping delivering. And then hopefully things will unfold themselves.”

Are you going to do anymore races for Porsche this season?

NH: “No.”

Perhaps next year?

NH: “That’s to be seen but it’s too early.”

But you’re open to doing more races in the longer term?

NH: “I’ve done Le Mans now. I don’t think it will be my first and only time. I definitely want to do that race again. If that’s going to be next year or whenever, it depends on what happens here and to my career.”

Could you perhaps see yourself faced with a dilemma in a couple of years’ time: that the call from Ferrari or whoever hasn’t come but Porsche offer you the chance to race for the world title in the WEC?

NH: (smiles) “It doesn’t stop the speculation and it’s too far away to judge! I don’t know.”

The long and the short of it, then, is that Hulkenberg hasn't been deluged by offers so far and that he might do some more sports car racing in the future. But he opens up discussing his Le Mans experience.

"It’s quite different actually. It’s a very different sensation because, to start with, you sit inside; the vision is a lot less, you have these pillars here (points in front, either side of himself) and you look through such a small windscreen, so you miss the wind noise and helmet buffeting that you get here.

"It’s a four-wheel drive car and it’s got traction control; that’s a complete game-changer and requires a different driving style. Each time I went from one to the other I had to adjust," adds Hulkenberg, who also raced for Porsche at the Spa 6-hour race in May.

"It didn’t hurt in any way. You might think that jumping cars and stuff will hurt my F1 driving style or performance, but actually I think the opposite was the case: driving a bit more and having more car time, even though it was a very different thing, was actually a positive. And each time when I jumped back in [F1] I didn’t really struggle. So I couldn’t see any negative point."

The first F1 driver since Johnny Herbert (in 1991) to win at Le Mans, Hulkenberg thinks more teams should allow their drivers to race. “It’s a great thing. And for me to have both, it’s a great challenge, a lot of fun. You saw in our example it was a ‘win-win’ situation: Force India got a lot of positive feedback from it and credit for letting me do it.

"But the flipside is that for teams – especially manufacturer teams – there’s a clash of interests. So there’s always going to be that conflict."

If Le Mans draws attention then it has to be a good thing because Hulkenberg’s F1 results have yet to match the faith so many have placed in him.

Of course, he’s never really had the car to get them but after 85 GPs and counting, his best finishes remain a pair of fourth places. There haven’t been the stand-out results that grab the attention; the podiums Perez managed, for example, that earned him a shot at McLaren.

Hulkenberg was linked to them too – to replace Perez, in fact – although McLaren said he was too big for their car. There are moments that stick in the memory, such as the 2010 Brazilian GP (pole on a drying track in his rookie season), the 2012 Brazilian GP (leading in the wet before colliding with Lewis Hamilton) and the 2013 Korean GP (holding off Hamilton and Fernando Alonso during the closing laps in a Sauber).

Too often, though, he’s been "quietly working away in the background" and it’s been to his detriment. You only have to look at the fevered reaction to Verstappen’s arrival to understand.

Speaking of whom, Hulkenberg is just about the last driver to reach F1 without the backing of a Red Bull-style programme or major sponsorship for that matter.

Instead he arrived the old-fashioned way, with a shed load of titles (acing Formula BMW, A1 GP, F3 and GP2) in marked contrast to the results he’s had since. Is it still possible for drivers to make it that way? "At the moment? Very difficult indeed."

And you don’t see that changing? "No. As you say, there’s a lot of drivers – more drivers than seats – so it’s a competitive market. And it’s true that, like Red Bull, they take their drivers from their academies: when someone moves up from Toro Rosso to Red Bull and then that gap is filled with their own academy people.

"[It] makes sense – that’s the whole idea behind their programme – that’s why they invest money. But it’s really tough just not being involved in a programme and not having a lot of money to bring; it’s going to be very, very hard to get in."

Hulkenberg adds: "It’s just how my career unfolded and my principle is that people should hire me because they’re convinced I’m a good driver and not because of other reasons." Maybe this time around one of the bigger teams will – finally – be convinced.