Nico Hulkenberg started his day at Silverstone as far back as a driver can get in Formula 1 – the last row of the grid. <\/p>\n
Fast forward 52 laps of chaotic wet-weather racing and the 37-year-old came through the field, aided by a perfectly executed Sauber strategy, to achieve his very first F1 podium on his 239th attempt. <\/p>\n
Hulkenberg’s sensational third place at the British Grand Prix on Sunday – which set a new record for the longest time before finishing on the podium at 5,593 days – has been 15 years in the making. <\/p>\n
The German’s debut was at the 2010 Bahrain Grand Prix with Williams and after 10 seasons in F1, he found himself without a seat in 2020. He made a return with Haas three years later. <\/p>\n
Hulkenberg said that while he was “relieved” to claim the longed-for podium, he was also feeling “pretty empty”. <\/p>\n
“It’s been an emotional rollercoaster this weekend, being virtually last [on Saturday], so a pretty bad day to one of the best days of my career – it’s obviously a lot to take in,” said Hulkenberg. <\/p>\n
His climb from 19th to third on what was a truly miserable summer’s day in the UK, plus the points he had scored in the previous three races, means Hulkenberg moves up to ninth in the drivers’ world championship. <\/p>\n
“That race was intense, with all the changes of conditions, it was sketchy,” he added. “A high-speed track with changeable conditions is never easy. <\/p>\n
“While I’m happy and relived, I’m mostly tired, and looking forward to getting home, to be honest.” <\/p>\n
Hulkenberg’s rookie Sauber team-mate, Gabriel Bortoleto – who is 17 years his junior – was one of the first to congratulate him, saying over the radio: “Man, you don’t know how happy I am for you. You are a legend. Absolutely insane what you did today.” <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nico Hulkenberg started his day at Silverstone as far back as a driver can get in Formula 1…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":47546,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[1687,372,6537,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-47545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-f1","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47545","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47545"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47545\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47546"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}