Nico Hulkenberg is one of F1's rising stars. After impressing in his debut season at Williams, scoring 22 points and a pole position in 2010, he was then pushed out of a drive by money maker Pastor Maldonado. He seeked refuge at Force India were he had the role of test driver in 2011, before finally getting a race seat for the 2012 season.
After a relatively decent start to the year, scoring points in Malaysia and making it into Q3 in Australia, he is looking on to the new season. I got the opportunity to ask him 3 questions and I jumped at the chance. Here they are:
1) You've just come back from a year out of racing in Formula 1, how did you prepare for the season?
Actually I didn’t change much in my preparation compared to last year. I just did a little more of everything. Basically as a driver you cannot do a lot more than working on your fitness. Besides that I was fully involved in the development of the car, which meant some sessions in the simulator and some visits in the factory in Silverstone.
2) You have been teamed with Paul Di Resta for the 2012 season, what do you think are his strengths and weaknesses, also how do you think you compare against him?
I haven’t seen any weaknesses so far. He is very talented and quick and he has quite a professional approach. However, I’ll try my very best to be in front of him as often as possible. This will not be easy – even after two races you can see, that it’s pretty close between us. But as we are pushing each other quite a lot, the team benefits from that. I think we make a good line-up.
3) What would be a realistic goal for the season in terms of the drivers standings, points and the constructors standings?
As a team we made clear, that we are aiming fifth in the Constructor’s championship. This will be very tough, as the midfield is incredibly tight and we have to work as hard as we can to achieve this goal. For me personally I don’t want to tell any figures. I do not aim for a certain amount of points or something. I just want to establish myself in F1, give my very best each weekend and try to collect as many points as possible. And everything else we will see later.
Follow Nico on Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/NicoHulkenberg
Nico's Website: http://www.nicohulkenberg.net/
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| (c) Octane Photographic |
1) You've just come back from a year out of racing in Formula 1, how did you prepare for the season?
Actually I didn’t change much in my preparation compared to last year. I just did a little more of everything. Basically as a driver you cannot do a lot more than working on your fitness. Besides that I was fully involved in the development of the car, which meant some sessions in the simulator and some visits in the factory in Silverstone.
2) You have been teamed with Paul Di Resta for the 2012 season, what do you think are his strengths and weaknesses, also how do you think you compare against him?
I haven’t seen any weaknesses so far. He is very talented and quick and he has quite a professional approach. However, I’ll try my very best to be in front of him as often as possible. This will not be easy – even after two races you can see, that it’s pretty close between us. But as we are pushing each other quite a lot, the team benefits from that. I think we make a good line-up.
3) What would be a realistic goal for the season in terms of the drivers standings, points and the constructors standings?
As a team we made clear, that we are aiming fifth in the Constructor’s championship. This will be very tough, as the midfield is incredibly tight and we have to work as hard as we can to achieve this goal. For me personally I don’t want to tell any figures. I do not aim for a certain amount of points or something. I just want to establish myself in F1, give my very best each weekend and try to collect as many points as possible. And everything else we will see later.
Follow Nico on Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/NicoHulkenberg
Nico's Website: http://www.nicohulkenberg.net/
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