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?
 
2008 was probably the evidence people need to know that Nick Heidfeld is not a world class driver ...whether its his fault or not..the fact he struggled and the team decided rather to get him up to speed rather than back Kubica..now what team would take such a decision when your other driver is leading the championship...definitely not Ferrari , Mclaren or Red Bull at most they would offer equal opportunities and keep pushing in the position they were in

I am afraid in F1 there is not a place for "a solid driver" unless you are happy to contend with picking up points rather than going for wins and podiums like Sauber but even Peter Sauber knew first time round know there was not much more to gain from him

As for Heidfeld supposedly in contention with Mclaren and Mercedes for 2010..seats..I really think it was a bit of PR spin in that he was available..Mclaren or Martin Whitmarsh already stated he wanted world class drivers not solid drivers and the Mercedes seat...they were really after Schumacher all along.
 
Nick Heidfeld has taken the natural path for F1 drivers who couldn't quite hang on to their seats:

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/97246

Endurance racing in the Lola-Toyota LMP1 for Rebellion. I think he'll prove to be a fine Sportscar racer, much like McNish, Davidson, Gene & Wurz have proved before him - he has the temperament and mechanical sympathy that'll bring the beast home, instead of binning it in a do-or-die manoeuver at the first corner.
 
Nice to see Heidfeld driving as a guest in the Porsche Cup race at Hockenheim. The commentator made a bit of a thing about how an ex-F1 driver had qualified down in 14th showed just how good the drivers are in the Porsche Cup. It may also show how different driving the Porsches is, especially when free practice was wet.

Heidfeld managed to get up to 10th before falling back to eleventh before finally getting back to tenth and hence on the leaderboard.

He rather reminded me of Johnny Herbert in the classic sports car race at the British GP a few years ago. It took Herbert some laps to get used to the idea of drifting the car through the corners, but once he got into it he he drove faster and faster. Although Heodfeld's finishing position looks lowly what it doesn't show is that early on he was dropping back into the hands of the drivers behind him whilst towards the end of the race he was pushing the drivers in front of him.

I think that he will be making some more guest appearances, it will be interesting to see how he develops.
 
Yes Whippet and lets fill the grid with those drivers like Heidfeld, Trulli and Sutil who have had their chances over and over again and not dobe anything with them whilst the likes of Pic, Razia, Bird, Bianchi and Bottas wait on the sidelines waiting to see how long it takes Nick to completely blitz Andre De Cessaires out the records book.
 
Yes Whippet and lets fill the grid with those drivers like Heidfeld, Trulli and Sutil who have had their chances over and over again and not dobe anything with them whilst the likes of Pic, Razia, Bird, Bianchi and Bottas wait on the sidelines waiting to see how long it takes Nick to completely blitz Andre De Cessaires out the records book.

Looks like you're playing stupid. Looks like you're winning too. 8-)

My genuine view on the subject of Heidfeld returning?

I doubt a top team would let him in, but if they had during his best years he would've made as big an impact as anyone. A shame he was never put in a genuine front runner. I've moaned before about Mercede's mistake in not giving him a race seat in favour of an up and coming hype job and a formerly great driver and currently average one.

Now he's been out of it he may be like Cutty from The Wire - "The game; it ain't in me no mo'."

A driver of his ability and class deserved a better end to his F1 career, and the sport should've treated him, but as they say: The game stay the game. Mother****er.

Maybe F1 is reserved for the selfish. Heidfeld's first action after getting that brilliant podium in Malaysia was writing a letter to Robert Kubica saying he'd had Robert's name and the Polish flag on his helmet to show Kubica's fans he's still a part of F1, and then offered encouragement on returning.
Says it all really.

Now he's had timeout I doubt he'd contribute as much as could have. A shame, but it's in the past and there's no harm in him finally doing a bit of self promotion!

As for Trulli and Sutil, Trulli's been stagnating for years but when did Sutil get his chance? When did he get it over and over again? He F'd up royally with glassing a team boss but he was among the standout performers in 2011. I'm not a fan of Adrian, but speaking impartially he deserved a drive this year on talent. Definitely the best midfielder of last year and not in the past it pile.
 
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