German Nico Hülkenberg will drive for the Sauber F1 team next season. The recent contract news may complicate Valtteri Bottas’ future plans.
Valtteri Bottas represented by the Sauber F1 team has announced that the German Nico Hulkenberg will act as the organization’s second race driver next season. Hülkenberg, who turns 37 this year, has driven this and last season in the Haas team. His contract is multi-year.
Valtteri Bottas is currently driving his third season in the team that previously changed from Alfa Romeo to Sauber. Bottas’ teammate has always been Chinese Zhou Guanyu. The current contracts of both expire this season.
Big winds are stirring in the team, because it will officially change to Audi in 2026. The German car giant will also supply the team with engines in the future. Audi has just been seen wanting a German driver in the team, and Hülkenberg, who drove in the F1 series for the first time in 2010, is the only realistic option.
Hülkenberg enthused in the press release that competing under a brand like Audi is something special.
– This is a unique opportunity. Representing such a car brand with a power unit made in Germany is a really great honor for me, he said in the press release.
A Spaniard has been speculated to be the team’s second driver Carlos Sainz, which is the hottest name in the free driver market. The Ferrari driver, who had a great start to the season, will have to give way after this season to the Italian seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton from the road.
The season of the team still operating under the Sauber name has gotten off to a miserable start in the first five races. It doesn’t have a single point, and the painful journey has been tinged by the car’s reliability problems and slow pit stops.
Already last season, the pace was lost, but in 2022, especially from the beginning of the season, the pace of the team’s car was good. Valtteri Bottas achieved 49 points at that time and finished tenth in the World Series, while the more inexperienced Zhou only managed six points. At the time, the team was sixth in the manufacturers’ series, but only ninth last season.
– With his speed, experience and ability to cooperate, he is a really big piece for the team and is part of the change in Audi’s F1 organization, one of the leading figures in the team Andreas Seidl glowed.
Questionable history
In his career, Hülkenberg has driven as a racing driver in the ranks of Williams, Sauber, Force India, Renault and Haas. His career seemed to end already in 2019, but Hülkenberg was able to drive in individual races in the following years that convinced the F1 crowd.
For 2023, the Haas team was looking for an experienced driver with poor performance Mick Schumacher instead, so the choice fell on the German born in 1987.
Hülkenberg has the reputation of a certain F1 cult figure. Already in his opening season in 2010, he surprised by accelerating to the pole position in Brazil, but he has not been able to reach the top three in the race even once.
He holds the ungrateful title: the most races without podium places. With the Audi project, Hülkenberg gets more time to pursue his dream goal.
Updated story 12.58: Completed story