Nico Hulkenberg opens up on 'GUTTING' Mercedes and Ferrari speculation

Nico Hulkenberg

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Hulkenberg opens up on 'GUTTING' Mercedes and Ferrari speculation

Nico Hulkenberg was once heavily linked with switches to some of F1's biggest teams, but to no avail

Harry Smith

Thursday 11 May 2023 13:58

Nico Hulkenberg has addressed the speculation linking him to moves to both Mercedes and Ferrari throughout the 2010s.

The German driver, who impressed during his early years in F1 with Williams and Force India, was touted as a potential Mercedes driver on multiple occasions, as well as holding talks with Ferrari.

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Hulkenberg's Ferrari move was closest with the Italian team eventually opting to re-sign 2007 world champion Kimi Raikkonen, who was impressing at Lotus at the time.

It has also been revealed by Ross Brawn that Hulkenberg was Mercedes' second choice after Lewis Hamilton in 2017, while he was also linked as a Rosberg replacement for 2017.

Hulkenberg's high hopes

Unfortunately for Hulkenberg, he never got his shot with a top team and the 35-year-old has now addressed these old rumours in a recent video on the Haas YouTube channel.

“Yeah I mean there’s always silly season, every year, every summer," Hulkenberg said when asked if there was any truth to those rumours.

“There’s always rumours. I think… you know it's a subject there’s no point dwelling about it, talking too much because it's in the past.

Nico Hulkenberg's F1 career has been revived at Haas

“But I’m pretty certain that I was, you know, pretty close at one stage to sign for one of the top teams but in the end, it didn’t happen, for one reason or another.

“Which is obviously, you know, a bit gutting, but I still made a decent career in Formula 1 and, yeah, no thinking back or crying about it now.”