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EXCLUSIVE: ‘I’m here for the grind’ – Nico Hulkenberg on his Sauber return, Audi’s impending arrival and targeting F1’s top step
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Nico Hulkenberg made a dream start to his second Sauber stint at the rain-affected, season-opening Australian Grand Prix, scoring more points in one race than the team achieved across the entire 2024 campaign. Shortly before delivering that eye-catching result, he sat down with F1.com to discuss the return to his former home, how Audi’s all-new Formula 1 project is developing in the background, and what might be possible when the automotive giants arrive on the grid next year…
Hulkenberg and Sauber reunite
“Not too shabby,” a grinning Hulkenberg says of his winter break, and the process of settling back into an outfit he previously represented more than a decade ago, when we meet inside Kick Sauber’s hospitality unit at the Bahrain International Circuit.
It’s the first day of pre-season testing in the Sakhir desert and, following weeks of factory visits, meetings, simulator work and plenty more off-track duties, the German is finally getting to experience Sauber’s striking green-and-black 2025 challenger – the C45.
Some 12 years have passed since Hulkenberg last hopped into a Sauber cockpit, specifically the C32 from the 2013 season, when he delivered a run to 10th in the Drivers’ Championship – scoring his joint-best F1 finish of fourth at the Korean Grand Prix.
After a stint at Haas, Hulkenberg made the switch to Kick Sauber for the 2025 season
Unsurprisingly, plenty has changed for Hulkenberg, Sauber and F1 between then and now, something he points to while sharing what it was like to walk through the doors of the squad’s headquarters in Switzerland once again.
“More new faces than familiar faces, to be honest!” Hulkenberg comments, touching on how many of his Kick Sauber colleagues he recognises and the transition as a whole. “At Hinwil, there are a few of the ‘old rangers’ from 2013, but the race team has changed a lot, with mostly new people.
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“We’ve been busy over the winter, preparing as much as we can, but I’m more of a practical guy, so that’s why I’m happy that we’re back in the car and doing the real thing. It’s very early days, the start of a long journey. Work in progress, actually – that’s the motto!”
Early success in Australia
On paper, Hulkenberg moved from a Haas team who finished seventh in last year’s Teams’ Championship with 58 points under their belt, to a Kick Sauber operation who wound up at the foot of the standings with just one points finish to their name.
While there is a winter of varied development up and down the F1 grid to bear in mind, it begs the question: how do the two packages and garages fundamentally compare – and what will Hulkenberg be working with in the early stages of his Sauber reunion?
It’s very early days, the start of a long journey. Work in progress, actually – that’s the motto!
Nico Hulkenberg
“Obviously, you’re always going off your references – last year and generally the past,” he explains. “We have what we have right now. There are some good and not so good things [about the car], so it’s just about looking at everything.
“It’s really a familiarisation phase, getting connected to the car and getting to grips with it. It’s a new car, a new team, and that always takes some time, effort and work – very detailed work – that doesn’t happen overnight. You can’t do it in theory, you have to be out there driving, and we’ve started that process.
“Are we going to walk out of the first few races with a smile or with a bit of a [frown]? That’s to be seen. For now, it’s important that we focus, work hard on the things that we can influence, and just maximise the opportunities and our potential.”
As it transpired, Hulkenberg and Kick Sauber left the season opener in Australia a couple of weeks later with huge smiles on their faces – having done exactly what he said above thanks to a composed, well-executed race in mixed weather conditions.
Exiting at the Q1 stage in a dry Qualifying session might have shown that a significant challenge lay ahead of Sauber if they were to climb back up the midfield order and become regular points scorers again, but when the heavens opened on race day, Hulkenberg and his new team were ready to pounce.
Hulkenberg previously represented Sauber for a sole F1 campaign back in 2013
With Hulkenberg doing his part by keeping the C45 on the road throughout a challenging wet-dry-wet encounter, the Kick Sauber pit wall pitted him at exactly the right time for the switch from slick tyres to intermediates during a late shower – earning them a surprise seventh.
“Obviously, I was very happy for the entire team to come away with points in Melbourne,” Hulkenberg would tell us in a follow-up chat after the Albert Park encounter. “Scoring at the first race is always a good feeling and gives us positive momentum.
“The conditions were tricky, but we managed to stay clean and make the most out of it. Credit to the team for calling the right strategy at the right moment – as it really helped put us in this position.”
Getting to know Sauber’s new bosses
While Hulkenberg will be “staying realistic”, knowing that there is “a lot of work to do to be competitive in normal conditions”, it nonetheless meant a six-point return from one race compared to Kick Sauber’s four-point return from 24 Grand Prix weekends last year.
This no doubt pleased new team chiefs Mattia Binotto and Jonathan Wheatley, whose combined responsibility it is to take Kick Sauber from the bottom of the F1 pile to the very top under Audi’s ownership and ambitious programme.
Mattia Binotto took over from Andreas Seidl as Kick Sauber’s boss last summer
Binotto arrived at Kick Sauber last summer, taking on the roles of Chief Operating Officer and Chief Technical Officer in his first job since leaving long-time employers Ferrari – where he went from an engine engineer to Team Principal – at the end of the 2022 season.
Wheatley, meanwhile, will start his new position as Team Principal on Tuesday, ahead of a first race weekend appearance at the Japanese Grand Prix, with the F1 veteran bringing title-winning pedigree to the Kick Sauber organisation.
Returning to our pre-season conversation, Hulkenberg is full of positive words as he assesses Binotto’s impact so far and what Wheatley can offer after helping Red Bull go from points scorers to podium finishers, race winners and ultimately World Champions.
“It’s been very good – very positive, very productive,” says Hulkenberg of his growing relationship with Binotto. “He seems to be really on the ball. He checks in very frequently – and vice versa – about structural things in the team, how things are going. I have a lot of communication with him, and I’ve enjoyed it so far.
“Obviously Jonathan is coming with a huge bag of experience, a lot of knowledge and success. He’s been at one of the most successful teams in recent F1 history, so I’m sure he can contribute many good things and ideas, implement them here, help the team and enhance the performance.
Former Red Bull man Jonathan Wheatley will bring a wealth of experience to Kick Sauber
“Many new people have arrived lately, [also for example] on the engineering side, and we’re still recruiting massively. I feel all of these new inputs create quite a positive vibe, a positive environment and a positive atmosphere.”
Audi prepare to take over
As this season develops, Binotto and Wheatley – like their counterpart team bosses – will face the balancing act of delivering more performance to Kick Sauber’s current design and ensuring enough resources are put into the 2026 overhaul of F1’s regulations.
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Not only are Audi creating a new chassis for that ruleset, overseen by seasoned Technical Director James Key at the existing Hinwil factory, but they are also pushing flat-out with development of their own F1 power unit, which is being put together at the company’s dedicated facility in Neuburg – alongside a soon-to-be-opened UK ‘Technology Centre’.
From Hulkenberg’s perspective, though, the two development projects – and the quest for success in one of the world’s most competitive sports – go hand in hand.
“It helps to have this year as a build-up year, getting to know everyone, really arriving here, connecting with the team and the project, rather than jumping in from scratch – and cold – next year,” he says ahead of Audi’s official F1 entrance, with the brand completing their takeover of Sauber in early 2025.
Hulkenberg is putting the work in to help Kick Sauber – and later Audi – succeed
“But having said that, this year is obviously another championship year, and we want to do well and improve. We have to improve, even looking ahead to next year, where obviously the tension with Audi coming in and being an official works team is going to be bigger.
“We are basically setting the foundations and the groundwork for the next couple of years, so to be honest, every day and every step of the way is already important.
“I know the midfield is very, very tight and competitive – it’s very small margins and every little thing matters. I hope that we can break into this midfield battle and annoy a few people here and there, which would be very nice. It’s going to be a challenge to achieve that, but that’s what we’re here to do.”
Hulkenberg’s moment in the sun?
As that challenge takes hold, Hulkenberg will be drawing on vast experience from an F1 career spanning more than 15 years – having debuted with Williams back in 2010 as a highly rated Formula BMW, A1 Grand Prix, Formula 3 and GP2 champion.
In that time, he has contested more than 200 Grands Prix, scored more than 500 points, logged the aforementioned personal best P4 finish on three occasions and even claimed a pole position (see the rain-hit Brazilian Grand Prix during his rookie season), but being part of a truly front-running team and making it onto the F1 podium have so far eluded him.
I’m here for the grind, for the ride, for the pleasure, and the good days as well as the bad days
Nico Hulkenberg
So, does it feel like his time to shine – with the might of Audi now behind him – is in the F1 forecast for the seasons to come?
“Well, I hope so,” he adds. “But for me, I just enjoy my time here, and I enjoy being part of this project. I like to contribute, to help where I can. Besides racing and adrenaline, this is also a great aspect of the job and gives me a lot of satisfaction, that I can help the team with all my experience.
“I think we just want to push as hard as we can together and make it a good, successful story. The more successful, the better, obviously. I’m here for the grind, for the ride, for the pleasure, and the good days as well as the bad days, so we’ll see what happens.”
With that, our interview wraps up – the jovial Hulkenberg offering a fist bump and getting straight back to work in a bid to make his and Audi’s F1 dreams a reality.
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