Nick Heidfeld

Nick made his debut in F1 in the year 2000 for Prost Peugeot finishing his first season in the sport in 20th position scoring no points.

In 2001 he moved to Sauber and was joined in the team by rookie Kimi Raikkonen and scored a respectable 12 points finishing 8th in the WDC standings for the midfield team beating his rookie teammate. At the end of 2001 is was widely reported that Nick would replace retiring F1 legend Mika Hakkinen at Mclaren but he was left disappointed because it was infact his rookie teammate that landed the drive at Mclaren ahead of him.

So in the end he ended up spending another two seasons with Sauber paired with rookie Felipe Massa in 2002 scoring 7 points and in 2003 he was partner by fellow German Heniz-Harald Frentzen scoring 6 points.

In 2004 Nick swapped Sauber for Jordon and was partnered by both Pantano and Glock at the team scoring JUST 3 points.

In 2005 Heidfeld left Jordon and joined team Williams BMW partnering Austrailan Mark Webber after having a shoot out with Pizzonia for the second seat at Williams. Heidfeld went on to score 28 points that season for Williams. During that season he scored his first ever Pole Position and went on to claim 2 podiums.

In 2006 Heidfeld and BMW left Williams and took over the Sauber team. Heidfelds teammate to begin with that season was former World Champion Jacque Villeneuve, but after Villeneuve hurt himself at the German GP, he was replaced by rookie Robert Kubica. Heidfeld in 2006 scored 23 points.

In the seasons that followed Heidfeld stayed at BMW until their quit the sport back in 2009. In 2007 he scored 61 points, in 2008 he scored 81 points and in 2009 he scored 19 points.

In 2010 he joined Mercedes GP as a test and reserve driver but at the Singapore GP he was drafted in too replace Pedro De La Rosa at the Sauber team he partnered Kamui Kobayashi for the rest of the season scoring 6 points.

Now in 2011 Heidfeld is driver for the Renault Lotus team after former teammate Robert Kubica suffered a crash in a rally earlier in the year. He has currently scored 34 points so far and is partnered with former GP2 runner up Vitaly Petrov.

Heidfeld's Career has been very steady, but what has Heidfeld got/had missing in him to make top teams take notice of him?

 

[EvilWhippet]

Slyboogy
A combination of not good enough and not managing his career well .. he aint the only one there are plenty of others - Barrichello, Fisichella, Truilli, Montoya etc

0:14

 

[teabagyokel]

Il_leone - I assure you, if Jenson's surname was Tisery, he'd have been labelled "Misery".

 

[Il_leone]

EvilWhippet

Did not Heidfeld actually argue with the wrong Japanese driver if I remember ?

 

[EvilWhippet]

Aye, Sato was infact the offending "Vanker!"

 

[Bushi]

Brogan - Not quite, sorry. The driver to finish higher in the comparison is listed in the third column.

However, only twice in eleven attempts was Heidfeld beaten by the team-mate he started the first race alongside - by Frentzen in 2003 and by Kubica in 2008.

I don't think he would have beaten Kimi if he had more experience coming into f1.
But that's all speculation.

 

[Slyboogy]

Think that was Sauber's best season, where both drivers got the most out of the car, when they didn't retire, finishing 4th in the constructors.

Their best ever result, if you exclude the BMW involvement.

 

[Il_leone]

EvilWhippet

He was not happy at Sato bulking him up on the last lap I remember in China and allowed Button to sneak past whilst he crashed and lost a wing

He went to Yamamoto who he reduced to tears until realising it was the wrong guy

 

[Josh]

Huh, I didn't see any tears in that video.

 

[Il_leone]

He did because Yamamoto was wondering why he was getting a barrage of abuse from Heidfeld post race

 

[Slyboogy]

Yamamoto's not much of a man then.

 

[EvilWhippet]

I'd cry if Heidfeld was angry with me.

I've seen a video on youtube entitled "Heidfeld gets gayed out by Sato". Heidfeld was being held up by Sato with Button catching up from behind, then when Button goes to make the move, Sato moves across in front of Heidfeld, basically forcing him to slow to a near hault, then some dickhead smashes Nick from behind.

Now I can't stop laughing at the image of Sakon weeping in his helmet. He must be a sensitive soul, and faced with such furious and palpable testosterone fueled masculinity it's no wonder he was shaken to his honourable core. Heidfeld's just such a man. A man with a beard.

 

[EvilWhippet]

Heidfeld stole ice cream from a child recently. He was proud so he took a picture.

 

[EvilWhippet]

Pretty cool world record setting video from 1999:

Nick on his slow wranking

and here's an incredibly homoerotic Nick tribute which, I'm ashamed to say, isn't made by me...

I agree with the sentiment though

There are a surprising number of these.

 

[Mephistopheles]

The dude ran out of fuel, he was winning the race by 5s when that happened.

I always get a bit skeptical when I hear that as a reason for being fast as the drivers isn't carrying enough fuel and so he has an advantage over those who are until he runs out of fuel that is....

 

[ExtremeNinja]

That's where having a Ross Brawn is quite handy.

 

[Mephistopheles]

Are you trying to sabotage my efforts of getting a thread back on track ExtremeNinja

 

[gethinceri]

In my business we rank our customers, i take great pleasure in encouraging my European colleagues to discuss such during meetings. I kill myself laughing, my boss doesn't approve.

 

[Mephistopheles]

Very clever gethinceri

 

[gethinceri]

Hmmm, i sense sarcasm in your tone, as if you're saying "are you twelve you stupid little ****?"

 

[gethinceri]

You don't happen to be my boss, do you?