Nico Hulkenberg reckons Barcelona was the starting point for Sauber in F1 2025 which changed their fortunes after another bad winter programme.
Having switched from Haas to Sauber with one eye on the Audi project, Hulkenberg returned to the Swiss F1 outfit with not much hope pinned on the 2025 season considering how 2024 was for the outfit. There was still some outside hope that they can have a decent year to cap off and start afresh.
The team had changes in the background as well, with the arrival of figures like Mattia Binotto and Jonathan Wheatley. It was another bad winter programme as Hulkenberg admitted, but couple of updates turned their fortunes upside down and suddenly they were a proper midfield team.
The car became easier to drive and with rivals not pushing as hard, it helped Sauber to regain competiveness in all aspect which was lost in recent years. Hulkenberg believes Barcelona was the starting point, which brought some good highlights for him personally and also the team.
They finished ninth but scored 70 points which included a podium against the four it did in 2024. “Why I’m happy with the progress? I mean, just look where the team came from last year, had a really hard time, only one point scoring results,” said Hulkenberg to media. “Then again, obviously we started really on the wrong foot and turned wrong in the winter again.
“But then recovered from Barcelona onwards. So our season was, if you really analyse it and break it down, we started from Barcelona. Okay, we had a lucky punch in Melbourne obviously, but after that, we didn’t really take part in the championship. I think the season or the year has been a bit two-sided. As I said, obviously we started off poorly and under the expectations.
“And behind our expectation and potential and then from Barcelona onwards I think we corrected for a lot of it and had many, many point-scoring races, obviously a couple of highlights. The main highlight being Silverstone with Barcelona, I think Gabi in Budapest, the team performance in Austria and a few more. Austin was really good too. Qatar obviously was very unfortunate.
“But I think at the end of the day, on balance, probably it’s what we wanted, what we aimed for. So, we recovered well, and then obviously because we go into this new era, the development stopped relatively early for most teams, and so for us. So I think all things considered, it was a good learning year.
“I feel we’re growing, We’re building as a team, as an organisation, and I think we’re in a good way, which is good, positive, but there’s always things to do better and more,” summed up Hulkenberg, who finished 11th in the end in the drivers’ standing with 51 points which was same as Isack Hadjar but a fifth place result helped the German to be ahead of the Frenchman.
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