Force India’s drivers Paul Di Resta and Nico Hulkenberg are set to embark on an epic intra-team battle that could define their racing careers.
Whoever comes out on top is very likely to move on to bigger and better things, whilst the loser could get left behind.
For the first time in years the 2013 driver market could offer a genuine opportunity for a midfield driver to grab one of the top seats in F1.
For Lewis Hamilton, Mark Webber, Felipe Massa and Michael Schumacher, 2012 is the last year of their current contracts. Therefore there is a chance that all of a sudden, four of the top seats could become vacant (although it’s admittedly unlikely that all four drivers will leave).
In recent times, F1 opportunities for midfield drivers to move to the front of the grid have been very limited.
The last midfield driver to make the move to a top team was Nico Rosberg in 2010 when he moved from Williams to Mercedes. Then you have to go back to 2008 when Heikki Kovalainen moved from Renault over to McLaren.
The only other route that we’ve seen a midfield driver take to enter a top team recently is by driving for/or moving to a midfield team, that has suddenly became a front running team. That was very true for Jenson Button and Sebastian Vettel in 2009 for Brawn GP and Red Bull Racing respectively.
Di Resta and Hulkenberg are two of the most talented young drivers in F1 at the moment, and have to be two of the hot favourites to attract the attention of the top teams. In particular Mercedes is a very likely destination if Schumacher doesn’t decide to extend his F1 comeback.
Schumacher could be key to the 2013 driver market (© Mercedes)
Many suspect Massa’s career at Ferrari is as good as over. Reportedly Ferrari ideally want Robert Kubica in Felipe’s place but unless the Pole is back to 100% fitness, Ferrari will have to look elsewhere for a top driver.
McLaren is another probable destination. In an ideal world Hamilton would like to extend his contract with the team as soon as possible. However that could start to look very different if McLaren don’t give him a race winning car and Red Bull dominate once again. You’ll notice he has opted to wait for a few races until renewing his contract as opposed to doing it now.
If Mark Webber were to leave Red Bull you suspect one of the Toro Rosso drivers would get the nod to replace him, although there is a good chance Mark will stay.
So overall it looks likely that a seat could crop up somewhere which one of the Force India drivers could win. However it will be the one that wins the intra-team battle in 2012 that will most likely come out on top.
This driver partnership could have some similarities to the Nick Heidfeld/Kimi Raikkonen pairing in 2001 at Sauber, both of whom were very promising young drivers.
Heidfeld was the favourite to replace Mika Hakkinen at McLaren in 2002. However Kimi impressed McLaren so much in his debut season for Sauber that McLaren opted to hire him instead. That left Nick without his dream top seat.
After that, Nick never got his chance in a car that could regularly challenge for race wins, despite some good moments at BMW. Just think how different his career may have turned out had Ron Dennis had chosen him instead of Raikkonen.
Hulkenberg testing the VJM05 in Jerez (© Sahara Force India)
When you look back at Heidfeld’s F1 career, losing out on the 2002 McLaren seat was probably the biggest turning point of his career. A realistic shot at a top seat in F1 never came up again. When opportunities did come up other drivers had come onto the radar and beat him to it.
It could well be that a similar scenario occurs for whoever loses this almighty battle at Force India, hence why it is such an important battle for both driver’s careers.
Di Resta’s manager, none other than Antony Hamilton, told the Telegraph recently: “They’re both great kids – young, fresh, exciting – and I reckon they will push each other hard next year.
“Paul has the advantage of having driven the Force India car more this year (2011), but Nico has a full season with Williams under his belt and the practice sessions from this year too.
“I reckon it’s a level playing field but certainly if they drive well both will have other teams knocking at their door.”
The big question is who is going to come out on top and put themselves in pole position for a promotion to a top team?
Last year Di Resta took to F1 like a duck to water and had some fine moments including his qualifying at Silverstone (6th) and race performance at Singapore (6th). He came into F1 and was scoring points immediately. Only a couple of rookie errors denied him further big results – Canada being one of the main examples.
He gave his very highly rated and more experienced team mate Adrian Sutil a very good run for his money.
Di Resta chats with manager Anthony Hamilton (© Sahara Force India)
Considering his lack of recent single seater racing experience before his debut, this was extremely impressive and shows just how talented he is.
For someone so young he is also very mature and level-headed, very much like the man he beat in the F3 Euro series, two times world champion Sebastian Vettel.
Talking to the Independent in 2011 Hamilton said: “I’m extremely proud of Paul, he’s so level-headed.”
“Yes, he’s quiet, but it’s what you do on the track that’s most important.”
He added: “Paul has been a champion at every level he’s raced at: karting, Formula Three and DTM. Paul’s junior category CV is more substantial than Sebastian [Vettel’s] in some ways, and I expect him to do the same in F1. I believe that in him we are looking at a future world champion.”
Hulkenberg also won everything there was to win on the way to his F1 debut. In 2010 for Williams he had a solid rookie season with pole in Brazil being a major highlight. He took full advantage of the drying track.
The pole wasn’t just a fluke as it was the same situation for the other drivers, and he did a better job with an embarrassingly comfortable margin. It was a moment that showed he had star potential.
Frank Williams told the BBC towards the end of the 2010 season: “He was a little disappointing maybe in the first few races.”
He added: “Perhaps he was being over-cautious. But lately he’s become very competitive and I think we’ve just seen the beginning of something very exceptional.
Did Hulkenberg show his true talent in Brazil 2010? (© XPB.CC)
“He’s one of these drivers, a bit like Lewis [Hamilton], who has moved from ‘Formula this’ to ‘Formula that’ and won that formula, then went from ‘Formula that’ to ‘Formula something else’ and won that, all the way up through Formula 3 and GP2, he won every single championship.
“And in the right team – hopefully us, one day – he’ll win the world championship in Formula 1.”
Although if you exclude that pole position in Brazil you have to say Di Resta’s debut season was better than Hulkenberg’s when comparing them side by side.
It’s a reasonably fair comparison too as Williams were sixth in the constructor’s title with 69 points in 2010, just the same as Force India were in 2011. Furthermore both respective cars were stronger in the second half of those seasons.
Firstly Barrichello beat Hulkenberg 12-7 in qualifying. It was much more competitive between Di Resta and Sutil at 10-9 in Adrian’s favour.
The young Scot also scored a bigger percentage of his team’s points at 39.0% compared to 31.9% for Hulkenberg.
Di Resta was much quicker off the marks in his debut year. Hulkenberg only scored two points in the first 11 races. On the other hand Di Resta scored points in his first two races and in his first nine races beat Sutil 7-2 in qualifying.
Hulkenberg’s performances did improve in the second half of the season though scoring a lot more points. His strong drives in the second half of the season are probably a better indicator of his talent.
Nico’s debut season stats are weaker than Paul’s despite having had very recent single seater racing experience before his debut (winning the GP2 championship in 2009) which Paul lacked going into 2011.
The young German also hasn’t been racing for a year so therefore will be a little bit race rusty. This could give Di Resta an advantage at the start of 2012.
Overall when you take everything into account, Di Resta has to start as the favourite, although you suspect Hulkenberg has more in his locker than he has shown in F1 so far, as that performance in Brazil demonstrates.
Watching the battle between the pair unfold this season is going to be fascinating.
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