{"id":265308,"date":"2025-11-06T10:06:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-06T10:06:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/265308\/"},"modified":"2025-11-06T10:06:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-06T10:06:10","slug":"how-nico-hulkenberg-took-a-shock-f1-pole-position-15-years-ago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/265308\/","title":{"rendered":"How Nico Hulkenberg took a shock F1 pole position 15 years ago"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cWell, he made all of us look pretty average there.\u201d 2010 Formula 1 title contender Mark Webber<\/a>\u2019s reaction to Nico Hulkenberg<\/a>\u2019s sensational Brazilian Grand Prix pole position said it all.<\/p>\n

Coming into the Sao Paulo round, F1 was enjoying a five-way title fight between championship leader Fernando Alonso<\/a> for Ferrari<\/a>, Red Bull\u2019s Webber and Sebastian Vettel<\/a>, and McLaren<\/a>\u2019s Lewis Hamilton<\/a> and Jenson Button<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Read Also:<\/p>\n

Driving for Williams<\/a> alongside veteran Rubens Barrichello<\/a>,\u00a0Hulkenberg had been struggling on his F1 debut, scoring just one point in his first nine grands prix \u2013 from fifth on the grid in Malaysia, following a soaking-wet qualifying session.<\/p>\n

Hulkenberg\u2019s performance ramped up with consistent points finishes in the second half of the season, including sixth place in Hungary and seventh in Italy, but nobody could have predicted what happened in qualifying at Interlagos.<\/p>\n

Hulkenberg took 11th in Q1 and eighth in Q2 on a wet track, each time more than two tenths slower than\u00a0Barrichello, but the track was drying fast enough for slick tyres to be a viable option in Q3.<\/p>\n

\"Nico <\/p>\n

Nico Hulkenberg, Williams FW32<\/p>\n

Photo by: Steven Tee \/ Motorsport Images<\/p>\n

The German switched from intermediates to slicks at the right time, emulating his experienced team-mate, and went faster and faster, eventually taking first place by 1.049s over Vettel \u2013 his first and, to this day, only pole position.<\/p>\n

The 23-year-old struggled to believe it. \u201cThe car felt good, I had a good rhythm and I was just pushing as hard as I could, and my engineer [Tom McCullough] told me I have a good pace,\u201d he recounted shortly after the feat. \u201cBut then I expected when he came on the radio, that he\u2019d say, \u2018Yeah, you\u2019re P5, P6\u2019, the usual stuff. But then he said, \u2018You\u2019re pole position!\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

Barrichello\u2019s savviness played a key role in the shock result.<\/p>\n

\u201cRubens was doing a lap on scrubbed inters and had a moment on one of the corners, so he didn’t get a decent lap on scrubbed inters but said the track was dry, \u2018I am coming in\u2019,\u201d Williams co-founder Patrick Head explained at the time.<\/p>\n

\"Polesitter <\/p>\n

Polesitter Nico Hulkenberg, Williams FW32 Cosworth, Sebastian Vettel, Red Bull Racing, Mark Webber, Red Bull Racing<\/p>\n

Photo by: Glenn Dunbar \/ Motorsport Images<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was in putting dries in and Tom McCullough said, \u2018Is the track ready for dries?\u2019 and Nico said no, it was too wet for dries. Tom then said, \u2018Well Rubens is in the pits putting on dries\u2019, to which Nico nipped straight into the pits and put on dries.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you look at the times and sector times, you will see for Nico, he had a hard out lap and was able to do three consecutive hard laps. I don’t think Nico would claim yet that the combination of Nico and Williams is quicker than Sebastian Vettel and a Red Bull in the dry.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat he was able to do was get his tyres in the right temperature window better than anybody else and that was partly Nico’s driving, toughness and determination, and partly the fact that he was able to do a hard out-lap and three consecutive hard laps.\u201d<\/p>\n

The youngster dropped down to third behind the Red Bulls on the first lap, eventually finishing eighth in the grand prix.<\/p>\n

\"Brazilian <\/p>\n

Brazilian Grand Prix start<\/p>\n

Photo by: Getty Images<\/p>\n

Despite stating that Hulkenberg would win the world championship one day \u201cin the right team\u201d, Frank Williams couldn\u2019t resist new GP2 champion Pastor Maldonado<\/a>\u2019s mouthwatering Venezuelan backing, giving him the second seat for the 2011 F1 season.<\/p>\n

Hulkenberg found himself on the sidelines with a reserve role at Force India, but is still competing nowadays after recovering from several career setbacks; he took his maiden podium finish at Silverstone<\/a> this year, on the 239th time of asking, and is set to become F1\u2019s 13th-most experienced driver ever this weekend with a 247th grand prix start.<\/p>\n

Years later, his 2010 Interlagos performance remains unforgettable. \u201cHe drove it like he stole it,\u201d McCullough told GP Racing<\/a> in 2021. \u201cThat lap typifies him as a driver; phenomenal car control and natural talent to be able to drive right to the peak of the tyre slip angles. He\u2019s just naturally fast.\u201d<\/p>\n

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– The Motorsport.com Team<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cWell, he made all of us look pretty average there.\u201d 2010 Formula 1 title contender Mark Webber\u2019s reaction…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":265309,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[120293,49,48,578,576,577,122396,3019,120292,82,1196],"class_list":["post-265308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-autu00f3dromo-josu00e9-carlos-pace","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-how-nico-hulkenberg-took-a-shock-f1-pole-position-15-years-ago","tag-nico-hulkenberg","tag-sao-paulo-gp","tag-sports","tag-williams"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=265308"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265308\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/265309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=265308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=265308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=265308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}