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Kevin Magnussen’s shock maiden Formula 1 pole position isn’t the first time the Interlagos circuit has produced the unexpected in qualifying. And the last time it threw up a surprise on a Saturday 12 years ago, it was the Dane’s potential 2023 Haas team-mate Nico Hulkenberg who caused the upset.
Hulkenberg was approaching the end of his maiden F1 season with Williams in 2010, a seat it was already known he was likely to lose given the imminent arrival of Pastor Maldonado and sponsor PDVSA’s millions. But a rain-affected session at Interlagos allowed Hulkenberg, who hadn’t previously qualified higher than fifth, to lay down a marker.
The Cosworth-powered Williams was a decent car but not a frontrunner and the first two segments of qualifying played out relatively normally.
Hulkenberg comfortably reached Q2 by setting the ninth-fastest time in the first part of qualifying then lapped fourth-quickest in the second segment.
Few saw him as an obvious threat for a surprise pole even though it was clear that with the track drying, Q3 could pose a good opportunity for a sharp tyre change to pay off.
The 10 cars headed out on what were effectively intermediates (although then the nomenclature for the two non-slick compounds was wets and extreme wets) and it was actually the other Williams of Rubens Barrichello who made the slicks switch first.
Reflecting on that day several years later, Tom McCullough – today Aston Martin’s performance director but back in 2010 Hulkenberg’s race engineer – picked up the story.
“Rubens called the change to slicks halfway through Q3, and on our side, we weren’t sure,” said McCullough. “Rubens came in, we did one extra lap pushing and went P6.
“At the time, I was happy with that. We could either stay out to the end and hope it comes good with the inters and then have the potential to improve. But I knew that if everyone went slicks and we didn’t, we could be P10.
“I said to Nico that Rubens thinks it’s good for dries and others have changed, so he came in. Because he went out early, we had good track position and what was needed with those Bridgestone tyres in those conditions was to push hard.
“On the out-lap, I looked at my timing and saw the potential to do three timed laps but it was close. I said to him to push like hell to get these three laps in and I was seeing people running straight on at Turn 4 [Descida do Lago], so was on the radio telling him to be careful there and at Turn 12 [Juncao].
“Circumstantially, we ended up in that position with a clear track and three laps to push.”
Hulkenberg, then still with the sheen of a junior formula wunderkind whose famous demolition of the A1GP field in a wet Malaysian round stuck in the memory, certainly got on with it. The Williams generally performed well in low-grip conditions and he hustled it well to build the necessary tyre temperature.
Barrichello, meanwhile, had a double disadvantage. Not only was he carrying a little less wing than Hulkenberg, but he found himself caught in traffic and lost tyre temperature. That meant Hulkenberg was the Williams driver who had the shot and the tyres in the right window.
But while Hulkenberg did have an advantageous track position, this wasn’t a situation whereby the last driver across the line was guaranteed pole. Hulkenberg himself proved that by setting two laps good enough for pole position on his final two times around the Interlagos track.
Hulkenberg wasn’t aware how good his penultimate lap had been, so laid it on the line on the final attempt and backed his car control and feel to avoid him joining the ranks of drivers who were caught out by the low grip.
“When my engineer said ‘you have got one more lap mate, squeeze everything out’ I must say I did a pretty good lap without any mistakes,” said Hulkenberg after qualifying.
“Very smooth, trying not to get on any wet parts as it was still pretty tricky out there, especially sector three, the last corner. It was very easy to make a mistake but that lap was spot on and enough for pole position.”
It was a mighty final lap, one that put him a massive 1.049s faster than Red Bull driver Sebastian Vettel in second and gave Hulkenberg what stands as the only pole position of his F1 career.
The race didn’t go so well for Hulkenberg, as he was immediately relegated to third by the fast-starting Red Bulls of Vettel and Mark Webber. He finished the race eighth, which realistically was a decent result for the machinery.
But for Hulkenberg, it was all about Saturday. As Webber said after qualifying, “he made all of us look pretty average today”.
