SILVERSTONE, UK — Entering the final stages of the wet and chaotic 2025 British Grand Prix and mulling over a tire change, Nico Hülkenberg was in denial.
The German driver had qualified 19th on Saturday, leaving him the final car to line up on the starting grid before the lights went out at Silverstone. His team, Sauber, finished last in the Formula 1 standings in 2024 and relies on fate to grab occasional points this season.
And now Hülkenberg found himself running third at Silverstone with barely 10 laps of the 52 left, with Lewis Hamilton — a seven-time world champion and nine-time winner of this home race — bearing down in a red Ferrari.
Losing a podium would obviously hurt anyone. But this mattered so much more to Hülkenberg. Because in 238 previous F1 races, not once had he stepped onto the podium. This made him by far the most experienced driver in the 75-year history of the F1 world championship to never finish inside the top three. He’d claimed F1’s most unwanted record way back in 2017, when he surpassed Adrian Sutil’s tally of 128 starts.
A topsy-turvy race had catapulted Hülkenberg into contention. After completing what would be his final stop for slick tires, the track drying as the sun finally peeped through the clouds as evening approached at Silverstone, he had to see it home. That’s even though it would spoil the rest of the party for the home fans by denying Hamilton his first podium for Ferrari, with Hamilton’s compatriot Lando Norris winning ahead for McLaren.
“I was thinking, obviously he’s going to give it all in front of his own fans,” Hülkenberg said in parc ferme after the race. “I was like, ‘No, sorry guys, it’s also my day. I’ve got to stick my neck out.’”
Ten laps later, his green Sauber swept across the line, sparking huge celebrations. Finally, he’d ditched the record he’d gotten so sick of discussing over the last eight years.
“F— me,” he said to his engineer over the team radio. “I don’t think I can comprehend what we’ve just done. Oh my God.”
Nico Hülkenberg: an F1 podium finisher at last.
When Hülkenberg made his F1 debut in 2010, the idea of not standing on the podium for 15 years seemed unimaginable.
He was signed by Williams as the reigning GP2 (now Formula 2) champion and scored a shock pole position in Brazil in the wet in his first F1 season. Two years later, at Interlagos, in similar damp conditions, he took the fight to Hamilton’s McLaren for victory in a plucky Force India, only for a collision to take them both out of contention when Hülkenberg tried to grab the lead.
At points early in his F1 career, Hülkenberg was in the running for seats at both Ferrari and Mercedes — the latter’s second choice if Hamilton hadn’t signed there for 2013 — but neither materialized. He instead became F1’s journeyman with stints at Sauber, Force India and Renault before he dropped off the grid at 2019’s end.
There was one podium finish through this period — just not in F1. Hülkenberg won the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2015 as part of a one-off crew racing for Porsche.
He then became an F1 gun for hire, making a handful of cameos with Racing Point/Aston Martin (both neé Force India) when its drivers were unable to race after contracting COVID-19 in the next two years. But Hülkenberg was very much at peace with not racing full-time, as he dedicated his time to his wife and young daughter, Noemi. He also spent time working as a TV pundit.
Hülkenberg started 19th and finished third at Silverstone. (SIPA USA)
But when Haas called Hülkenberg up with the offer of a full-time drive for 2023, burned by the dramas of running experienced drivers across 2021-2022, he couldn’t say no. In fact, he’d be using his regular paddock appearances to badger the Haas team boss, Guenther Steiner, about a return to full-time racing action.
His Haas performances proved he’d lost none of his old speed, and this prompted a swoop from Audi. It wanted his experience for when it would evolve Sauber into its works team from 2026.
Hülkenberg’s latest start back at Sauber had been tricky, with the team initially struggling in the lower midfield. But car updates brought a step forward, helping Hülkenberg to grab fifth in the late-race madness in Spain. But his P19 in qualifying at Silverstone laid bare just how much work there was still to do.
A dose of summer rain always had the potential to shake up the British GP. It was just a matter of who would cash in.
Making the right tire choice at the right time was the challenge – that and staying on track when it was raining. Five drivers opted to pit before the lights went out to change to slicks, believing the track would dry out; an erroneous call they all would ultimately rue.
Hülkenberg, meanwhile, negotiated the tricky early conditions to rise all the way to 10th by Lap 3 of 52.
The first critical call Sauber made to define Hülkenberg’s race was bringing him in at the end of Lap 9 for a fresh set of intermediate tires. More rain was coming, but running the inters — which are specifically designed to deal with damp conditions — on a drying track had caused his first set to wear. Fresh rubber gave him an undercut when the rest of the leaders pitted two laps later to make the same switch, promoting him to fifth. Then the rain really came down.
That became fourth when Max Verstappen made a rare error – the Dutchman spinning out before the second safety car restart. This left Hülkenberg to fight Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll through the next stint over his coveted third place while the two McLaren cars escaped ahead.
A big result was on the cards for one midfield underdog; it was a question of which.
It was clear Hülkenberg had the superior pace. He passed Stroll into Stowe on Lap 34 when the rain abated, which meant DRS could be reactivated. Hamilton made the same move one lap later, which put Hülkenberg’s podium in serious doubt.
Except Hülkenberg was able to keep the faster Ferrari at bay, putting all his experience to good use on the drying track with one more pit stop to make.
Again, Sauber nailed its timing. It took the risk of conceding track position by leaving Hülkenberg out until Lap 42, one lap after Hamilton had pulled the trigger first. The undercut would gain critical seconds when the slicks fired up to temperature, but Hamilton’s off-track excursion when leaving the pits instead caused the gap to swell to 10 seconds. It was suddenly Hülkenberg’s to lose.
Keeping it on track was tricky. When race winner Norris explained in the post-race news conference just how easy it was to make a mistake, Hülkenberg giggled. “It’s so intense for us in the car in these changeable conditions on a damp track,” Hülkenberg said. “You always feel like with one foot, you’re in the wall when you’re exploiting the limit and trying to push.”
It left Hülkenberg relieved when he finally crossed the line, graced by the waving arms of his jubilant Sauber mechanics hanging over the pit wall. Jonathan Wheatley, Sauber’s team principal, jumped on the radio to say it was “the most overdue podium in Formula 1 history.”
Wheatley, the long-time sporting director at Red Bull and a former mechanic to Michael Schumacher, later added: “One of the best drives I’ve seen at Silverstone. One of the best I’ve seen of any driver ever. And it seems incredible to me that we’re all (finally) celebrating a podium. It feels to me like he should have been getting them all his career. It seems to be the longest-waited podium ever. He showed his class today. He didn’t put a wheel wrong. And the team made all the right decisions in terms of strategy.”
Hülkenberg celebrating with his Sauber team. (Andrej Isakovic / AFP via Getty Images)
A series of firsts followed for Hülkenberg: first time being instructed to park an F1 car up behind a podium board; first time doing a post-race interview in F1 parc ferme; first F1 post-race press conference for the top three drivers (he had to ask where to sit). It was also his first time going to the cool-down room after the race, and he forgot to take his helmet with him. Norris helped him out.
Standing on the podium, Hülkenberg watched down as his teammates, standing out in their bright green team gear, celebrated with chants of “Nico! Nico!” One waved a giant Swiss flag as the British national anthem played out for Norris before Hülkenberg finally got the chance to celebrate. He sprayed the champagne and patted his heart in gratitude to his team.
“I still remembered how to do it,” Hülkenberg said of the podium routine. “I used to do it a lot in the junior stuff. I had to wait for it quite a bit, but it just happened all so quick in the race. You’re still kind of processing that.
“Then there’s so many emotions, so many people coming at you, a lot of positivity, a lot of congratulations. At the moment, (I’m) just happy, relieved. It’s going to sink in more over the next few hours and the next few days.”
The paddock swelled with its congratulations. Post-race, bottles of beer and glasses of champagne were handed around the Sauber hospitality. Team members from Hülkenberg’s former outpost at Aston Martin took some bottles down to honor their old driver, as did Mercedes. His peers were just delighted to see him on the podium at last.
“When you’re in F1 for such a long time, not being on the podium and being so close a few times, I think this is a pretty special moment,” said Verstappen. “(Nico) knows what he can do. He has shown that in the past – before F1 and in F1. But for whatever reason, it didn’t work out until now. So, for sure, he will take it and he will be very happy.”
Williams driver Carlos Sainz said the fact Hülkenberg had never been on the podium was “completely irrelevant. For me, he’s always been a top five driver on the grid every time he’s been in F1.” Mercedes F1 boss Toto Wolff said he spent the final few laps tracking Hülkenberg’s times, his own team’s race long ruined by strategy miscues. “It’s good that underdogs show this kind of performance,” Wolff said.
After finishing one of his own answers in the post-race news conference, second place finisher Oscar Piastri said he wanted to ask one to Hülkenberg. “How does it feel to wait 15 years to finish on the F1 podium and you get a trophy made out of Lego?” Hülkenberg laughed and said it would be good for Noemi, who squealed excitedly back at home, watching daddy get the trophy.
Hülkenberg called it “surreal” and “incredible.” He’d committed to the Audi project knowing it might be some time until the results came, in what is likely to be the final stint of his long F1 career. There was no guarantee of success. A podium-less F1 career over 15-plus years was possible.
Yet that asterisk, that quirky statistic that belies the true ability of a familiar F1 face for the best part of the last 15 years, is no more. At last, after 239 races, the underdog has his day.
(Top image: Sipa USA)
