Mark Hughes commented on Nico Hulkenberg’s multi-year contract with Sauber. More precisely with Sauber/Audi. A well-known British journalist on the pages of The Race doubts that Nico will be any better than Valtteri Bottas…
Nico Hulkenberg’s move to Sauber next year has been confirmed, meaning Guanyu Zhou is in his final season with the Swiss team. It can be assumed that Valtteri Bottas also risks being out of work, but this depends on whether Hinwil can get the signature of Carlos Sainz under the contract.
If Sainz also agrees, then Hulkenberg will actually take Bottas’ place. If not, the German rider will replace Zhou.
Nico Hulkenberg has proven more than once over the years of his long career that he is capable of showing excellent results, especially in qualifying. But will he be better than Bottas? They have different piloting styles, but I would venture to suggest that Valtteri has a richer arsenal of techniques.
Hulkenberg’s career could have been brilliant if the “tire wars” had continued in Formula 1, and the driver’s task would have been to attack with full force on long series of laps. Perhaps then Niko would have become a superstar, played for the best teams and maybe even become a world champion.
He manages to get the most out of a car whose rear wheels do not grip the track in the best way – by the way, Sainz was also distinguished by this when he drove for Renault. However, Nico has never been able to find the optimal approach to Pirelli rubber, especially in the hybrid era when cars have become heavier and their powerplants produce impressive torque.
When Daniel Ricciardo became the German’s team-mate at Renault, it was quite obvious which of them was faster and who drove more efficiently. And this is not Hulkenberg. It was almost the same story at Force India, when Nico’s teammate was Sergio Perez: they spent three years in this team, and only in one of them Hulkenberg was ahead of the Mexican. Moreover, unlike him, he never stood on the podium, while Sergio managed it four times.
But Bottas has repeatedly shown very decent results, and in circumstances where one of the main problems was the performance of the tires. He also knows how to drive fast, and when he was racing for Mercedes, it happened that he was quite convincingly ahead of Lewis Hamilton. However, this did not happen very often.
On a good day, Valtteri can perform simply brilliantly; on an ordinary day, he can perform quite well and reliably. If it weren’t for the pit stop problems that have plagued Sauber this year, Bottas’ level of competitiveness could be comparable to what he showed during his best years at Mercedes.
Hulkenberg is probably capable of beating him in one fast lap, but Bottas tends to be more reliable. There is no doubt that Niko will do a better job than Zhou, who clearly lacks stability, but comparing Niko to the Finn will not be so clear-cut.
