Perez vs Hulkenberg: The result after three years

2016 F1 season

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Nico Hulkenberg and Sergio Perez arrived at Force India in 2014 after disappointing seasons.

Hulkenberg was making his return to the team following a largely wasted year in an uncompetitive Sauber. At the time he was widely considered to be the best driver in the field not to have a top drive.

Perez out-scored Hulkenberg – eventually
Perez, meanwhile, had seemingly blown his shot at the big time. Drafted into McLaren as Lewis Hamilton’s replacement in 2013, he hoped to spend the year fighting for wins but never even made it onto the podium. McLaren showed him the door after a single season, leaving him to join Hulkenberg at Force India.

The widespread expectation that Hulkenberg would prove the superior driver was largely borne out in their first season together, as the data below reflects. But Perez clearly raised his game after that. He narrowed the gap to his team mate in qualifying, though Hulkenberg still won that battle decisively by 35-24.

In the races it was a different matter. Having been beaten by his team mate over the course of 2014, Perez was Force India’s highest scorer over the past two seasons.

This isn’t a completely fair reflection on their efforts. Hulkenberg was the first man home more often than not, coming out ahead 23-22. And yet a podium finish still eludes him, while Perez has had one in each of the last three years.

That a fact which must rankle deeply with Hulkenberg. But it’s not something he’s likely to put right any time soon after moving to Renault.

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Hulkenberg vs Perez, 2014-16

2014

AUSMALBAHCHISPAMONCANAUSBRIGERHUNBELITASINJAPRUSUSABRAABU
Nico HulkenbergQ
R

2015

AUSMALCHIBAHSPAMONCANAUSBRIHUNBELITASINJAPRUSUSAMEXBRAABU
Nico HulkenbergQ
R

2016

AUSBAHCHIRUSSPAMONCANEURAUTGBRHUNGERBELITASINMALJAPUNIMEXBRAABU
Nico HulkenbergQ
R

NB. the 2014 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix is treated as a single points round.

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Author information

Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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69 comments on “Perez vs Hulkenberg: The result after three years”

  1. So over the 3 seasons, Hulkenberg won the qualifying battle 35-24 and the race battle 23-22, but by a lot of bad luck in races he was on for one (Monaco strategy, Brazil puncture just this year) he ends up with no podiums and Perez with 4… They’re very closely matched drivers, as the race battle shows, and in the end just 14 points between them.

  2. Pat Ruadh (@fullcoursecaution)
    9th January 2017, 12:54

    You can only race to the rules of the day, so you have to give Perez the respect.
    However take away cheese tyres and I would imagine the more talented pilot would reveal himself.
    2017 might tell a tale if Pirelli are to be believed.

    1. +1

      New category where different skillsets will come to the fore, I can’t imagine a 2017 where Perez’s supreme ability to mange rear tyre slip is as important as it has been the past few years but that’s not to say that he’ll not be able to showcase other skills. It’ll be really interesting to see the change in balance of the new cars, how it swings between drivers then how that changes through driver skill development and providing development direction.

    2. “the more talentented pilot” -, so I assume you think Hulkenburg is better, will only do better with “non-cheese” tyres. the tyres are the same for everyone… cheese or non cheese… the better pilot will get the result no matter what, and Perez got the higher results sorry to you.

      1. @kpcart Actually it was Hulkenberg who got on balance the better results 23-22 when both finished, not to mention the destruction in qualifying. Perez got the headline results but on balance it was the Hulk who was slightly ahead. And yes, I’m sorry too, but it’s a valid opinion given all the evidence that the Hulk is the more naturally talented driver of the 2. It’s also reasonable to assume that non-cheese tires will play more to the strengths of NH than the strenghts of SP. Your point?

        1. 23-22 stats doesn’t even work anyway since Hulkenberg crashed in several races which was his fault and his failiures always happened when he was behind on track. Examples of this include Spain 2016, Russia 2016, Austria 2016, USA 2016, Belgium 2015, Singapore 2015, Russia 2015. Thats alot of races.

          @montreal95

          1. @lolzerbob
            “his failiures always happened when he was behind on track”
            Well, that’s simply wrong.
            Off the top of my head, I can think of this year’s Brazilian GP (puncture while running in fourth), as well as the 2015 Hungarian GP (front wing failure while running in seventh with a shot at fourth) and US GP (front wing failure again, while running in fifth).
            That’s at least three failures over the past one and a half seasons that occurred while he was running ahead of Pérez.

          2. I talked about DNF’s. But Perez’s weekend in Hungary was already screwed by the suspension problem in Practice which meant they had to revert to almost the a-spec car and Maldonado as usual taking him out lol. The US GP is still confusing because losing an n plate doesn’t make you understeer so much and crash.

          3. @lolzerbob
            I fail to see a meaningful difference between losing lots of points due to a non-terminal failure vs. losing a lot of points due to a non-terminal failure. The essence of both is: You lose a lot of points, and there was nothing you could do about it. Also, Hülkenberg didn’t finish in both races. And no, I don’t think there was much to be confused about in the US GP. A crucial part of the front wing fails in a situation that puts great stress on the front tyres. *Of course* that leads to unexpected understeering at the worst moment.

            But why are we nitpicking in the first place? You said never, I said that’s completely wrong. And that’s pretty much it.

          4. @lolzerbob Off the top of my head I can only think of 1 crash in those 3 years that was definitely Hulk’s fault. The one with Massa at Singapore 2015. He was in front of Perez when it happened by the way. in 2016 NH was taken out thrice at the start through no fault of his own, and retired with car troubles in another. In two of these Hulk was ahead of Perez, while Perez was ahead in 2 others. In light of that, I think 23-22 is quite representative of the overall trend

  3. hulkenberg will whipe the floor with him in 2017 if the renault and force india are pretty much equal

    1. Just like with equal cars this year and last Perez easily beat him…?

      1. if you iugnore hulks incredibly bad luck and bad team tactics and the fact that perez got outqualified again, yes, he easily beat him. perez is more of a tire saver than a really great racer

        1. When will people realize bad luck doesnt exist, its a combination of bad circumstances and bad choices. Loosers will always call winners lucky

          1. You say bad luck doesn’t exist, and then proceed to explain what bad luck is.
            You need to make up your mind, son.

          2. bad luck exists

  4. Force India had a driver lineup in the top 3 IMO

    Look what they managed by hiring on talent, best private team in the field at the moment. Some teams could learn a lot on that regard

    1. I agree. I am of course a Perez fan and i really rate him. I sort of give Hulk a tough time but that’s mainly due to him being perceived better than he is, and if your such a big fan like me I get easily offended when people descredit Checo’s results and say Hulk’s better lol

      1. @lolzerbob I rate them both quite high, and really don’t have a preference.

        And I don’t dare to have an opinion at the moment. They have different attributes that I can appreciate, but can’t say who is the better one atm

        1. @johnmilk This. it shows the benefit of having contrasting styles in the same team.

    2. @johnmilk Interestingly, F1 metrics does not agree. Last year Hülkenberg was one of the worst-performing drivers of the grid and Pérez was just average: https://f1metrics.wordpress.com/2016/12/02/2016-model-based-driver-rankings/. Apparently last year’s force India was quite special.

      1. @f1infigures no, last year FI wasn’t quite special, on average was pretty much the same as the williams.

        The williams started better but FI turned the tables.

        Just by looking at some of those positions you can see it is flawed

        1. @johnmilk I didn’t invent this model, but at least it is unbiased and based on data from all races from 1950 onward. We don’t know which car was better, the Williams or the Force India, by looking at the final standings in the constructor championship, as the overall performance is a combination of car and driver performance. According to the model, which compares all drivers with their teammates, on average the Williams drivers where better than the Force India drivers, which suggests that the Force India was the faster car. By the way, even in the first races Force India were competitive, but that didn’t really show due to poorly-timed pitstops and first-lap collisions. At the end of the season they were clearly faster.

          1. @f1infigures it might be unbiased, that does not mean it is accurate.

            I haven’t had the time to do a deep analysis on how those metrics work, mainly because that information is dispersed on the website, and honestly, I don’t have the time for that.

            Two main things popped however, first it does not account for the human in the car, and the humans in the pits. It actually says that poor results that aren’t fault of the driver are taken as poor results. This in some cases can have an effect on the final standings, especially because the sample are just 20 odd races, there isn’t a lot of data to override glitches.

            But most of all, and the thing that I believe creates the most flaws is the way car performance is evaluated. You see when drivers say “well I’m giving 110%”, that simply does not happen, maximum they will reach what the car can give them (and in reality top drivers may reach around 99%, but never 100%), however in the model, car performance is evaluated taking into account an average of the cars finishing position, which sounds right doesn’t it? But it isn’t.

            Lets take the example of the McLaren, and this will also be the reason why Alonso is in first place on those standings (and I am not denying he had a great year, but certainly not the best driver this season). Because Alonso finished pretty much all the time ahead of Button, and Button had quite a few mediocre weekends, the car average is between Alonso’s overall finishing positions and Button’s overall finishing positions, and the model interprets this info as Alonso being able to push the boundaries of the car, and whatever coefficient is used to express this, places Alonso in first place. But in reality the McLaren performance is close to the positions that Alonso manages to do. It would be more logical to believe that Massa wasn’t able to make the most out of his machinery, and that is the reason why he finished behind Alonso in the stadings, it certainly wasn’t the case that Alonso made the car better than the Williams. This also applies for the STR, you can’t seriously agree for example, that Kvyat, the car bumping specialist had a better season than Hulkenberg can you?

            The model also predicts the constructors standings, and it says that McLaren should have finished 9th, but in reality the McLaren throughout the year was a better car than the STR, Renault and Haas.

            To conclude, car performance needs to be better calculated, otherwise the model is giving an unfair advantage to the drivers that the model thinks have a bad car. One might say, the model is a bit biased

        2. @johnmilk Thanks for your reply.
          What the model does is separating driver from car performance by comparing teammates (who have the same car in theory), so car performance is determined by driver performance. In their Ferrari years Alonso consistently outperformed Massa (in each season he scored like 2 to 3 times more points). Using this information suggests that the Williams was a significantly better car than the McLaren, given that Alonso and Massa were almost tied in the championship. Note that driver performance is not just pure speed. In the end, qualifying performance, race pace, the ability to get off the line well, overtaking skills, etc. combined is translated into race results, which is then used by the model.
          In Kvyat’s case, his 2016 performance is probably inflated by his good results against Ricciardo in 2015 (who, of course, beat Vettel in 2014, suggesting that Kvyat is at least as good as Vettel). In this case, when driver performances seem to vary wildly from season to season, the model doesn’t work too well. More time is needed to obtain reliable estimates of the Red Bull and Toro Rosso drivers’ performance levels. Also the Manor drivers were difficult to rank because they only had rookie teammates.
          So, in the end, the model is not perfect, as there is only limited information, but I think it is about as good as it gets. The main objective of the model was to determine which driver would be the best in equal cars, which I think is very interesting. Usually drivers in top cars are considered to be the best drivers (because “the best drivers end up in the best cars”, or for being able to resist the huge pressure), while some very good drivers in midfield cars are overlooked.

          1. “What the model does is separating driver from car performance by comparing teammates (who have the same car in theory), so car performance is determined by driver performance. In their Ferrari years Alonso consistently outperformed Massa (in each season he scored like 2 to 3 times more points). Using this information suggests that the Williams was a significantly better car than the McLaren, given that Alonso and Massa were almost tied in the championship”

            This is exactly what is wrong with it

        3. @johnmilk Care to elaborate?

          1. @f1infigures it is a bit of what I said earlier

            You cannot evaluate car performance from drivers results, that is unrealiable data. Because you have a model telling you that a car isn’t good because a former team mate managed to outperform another in a slightly worse car.

            Also as you said if ot is telling you that Kvyat is as good as Vettel something is really wrong

            I know it isn’t easy to evaluate car performance, but I know a website that actually does a pretty good job at it, by comparing performance in seconds, the best part of that website is that you are reading on it

        4. There is indeed a model that actually uses laptime data to estimate driver performance. As far as I know, the results are similar to performance models, so race pace and race result are pretty much correlated as one would expect.
          An intriguing result of this model was that in 2001, when Schumacher easily won the championship, the Ferrari was estimated to be slower than both the McLaren and the Williams. Of course the Ferrari had better reliability and as a team they were performing at a higher level, but the analysis suggests that it was Schumacher who made the difference. Still, even this model works in a similar way, based on teammate comparisons to estimate the relative pace of all drivers.
          Models that use race results instead of timing data can be regarded as a scientist who wants to rank a bunch of chess players by letting them play games against each other in a rather unorganized way (some players play the same opponent all the time). While this isn’t an ideal experiment, it’s the only thing we can do to compare F1 drivers. Of course occasionally a weak player (driver) will beat a strong player (driver), but overall the model will correctly identify the stronger players (drivers), who will be the top scorers in the long run. Therefore, I’m rather confident that the model works well.
          In the Force India case I think both Pérez and Hülkenberg are underrated. Hülkenberg is hard to rank, because he was paired with some rather unimpressive drivers (Gutiérrez, Di Resta) and because he lost quite badly to Barrichello in his rookie year. Pérez also lost to an experienced driver (Button in 2013), while he was pretty much equal to Kobayashi in their Sauber years. Kobayashi was generally faster than Ericsson in his last year in F1, even though it didn’t really translate into better results, which possibly explains why the Sauber drivers have such high rankings (compared to the Force India drivers). Luckily, with more driver comparisons, the rankings will become more accurate.

  5. I disagree that Hulkenberg had a disappointing year in 2013. Yes the Sauber was weak but he achieved some great results with it and single-handedly lifted it up to P7 in the WCC while finishing in the top 10 of the WDC. Yes, he might’ve hoped for 2012 Sauber levels of performance, but on a personal level he had a great season.

    By all parameters these two were overall closely matched, apart from qualifying, which is easy to explain: Perez’s driving style is so optimized toward tire preservation that he simply cannot qualify well on a consistent level. A classic cause>effect

    Finally I wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss Renault’s chances for podiums in 2017. Team Enstone is a great team and given the resources it will perform.

    1. @montreal95
      I think Keith meant disappointing in that he was given a dog of a car, rather than on personal performance, as he goes on to say later he was regarded as the best driver outside of a top team. You could say the same for Perez, although his career was on much shakier ground thanks to the way McLaren treated him.

      1. OmarRoncal - Go Seb!!! (@)
        10th January 2017, 4:35

        @george about that, I can’t imagine how good Perez must feel every time he passes a McLaren on track, and every time he finishes higher in the WDC than the McLaren drivers (even more, Perez alone has had more points than the McLaren duo 2 years in a row!!!).

    2. @montreal95 Hulk was it at in 2013, a really good year and the best for him in F1, doing well in Sauber

  6. I think Perez results vs hulkenburg, especially the perez podiums are why Hulkenburg never got a top drive – as he could not get better results than a driver that appeared to do only average in a top team “McLaren”. and I think for that reason also it is justified why hulkenburg has not got a top drive.

    1. Again as above: NH did get better results. Perez got the 4 podiums but NH finished in front of SP more often than not. Perez got thrown out of Mclaren because, for all his tire-saving skills, he lacks the level of natural speed, that is required of a very top driver. With the score of 35-24 in qualy, there’s no doubt who’s natural speed is greater. Now the Hulk has his weakness in preserving the rear tires with his aggressive driving style. But you know what? Many WDC’s had their own weaknesses. KR needs a very responsive front end to perform. Rosberg is weak in battle situations. 4 time WDC Vettel was found wanting multiple times when the car wasn’t to his liking, like in the first half of 2012, in 2014, and in 2016. Of the current drivers I only know of Alonso and probably Hamilton who definitely have no weaknesses with regards to car preferences. That only tells us that NH is probably not Alonso or Hamilton, so what? There’s more than 2 seats in top teams. And if 2017 regs change will eliminate or reduce his weakness, Hulkenberg will give the big teams a lot to think about with regard to 2018 and beyond.

      1. Like you post because it really does pretty much confirm that best two drivers of the last decade really were those two. I am quite convinced Vettel would get his ass handed to him by Alonso and Hamilton if in the same car despite the 4 championships on his name.

        We will see of what new drivers like Vestappen, Riccardo and Bottas are made with another rule change and different cars now. Unfortunately not easy with Ocon, Vandoome ans Stroll since they basically start with the new rules.

  7. It is amazing how Perez gets discredited so easily here. I mean even if he wins a world championship he wouldn’t get recognition. Numbers are numbers, and if he got more points than NH and he got 4 (“lucky”) podiums, then, without question, he got better results. I can’t understand how there is people saying that he didn’t.

    1. @drrapg What about the bad loss in qualy? Isn’t it a number? Isn’t a 22-23 loss to Hulkenberg in races they both finished a number?

      In fact, it’s Hulkenberg that is discredited. Because of the 4 podiums there’s a perception, in the press as well, that he was somehow badly beaten by Perez. Which he wasn’t. Judging by all the numbers it was nearly even with a very slight edge to Hulkenberg overall in the 3 seasons as team-mates

      1. So now qualy is more important than race craft? Yes, Perez has been behind Hulk more often than not but that doesn’t mean he is slow by any means; we saw him flying to P2 at Baku’s race, only to be penalized after. Nico Hulkenberg tends to have the upper edge in qualifying, but the difference is marginal. In the races (where the points are given), it is different: Perez usually starts better and he is very skilled at preserving tires and overtaking (3rd with most overtakes last year). Yes, Hulk has been unluckier, but I doubt he is a better driver than Sergio.

        1. That’s like doubting that Sebastian Vettel is better than Daniel Ricciardo.

    2. @drrapg I’d say the opposite. It’s true that everybody though Hulk was going to crush Perez. Perez has been exemplary. What comes across after these years is that Perez was better than and the highlight of the team and one of the season, but the numbers bring back some reality to the Hulk vs Perez matchup.
      I hope that somebody in McLaren wasn’t so interested in Mexican money and had seen that Perez was actually quicker than JB and then dismiss JB once and for all.

    3. Well, he doesn’t have a Le Mans victory yet tho. Saying he was better than Hülkenberg was like saying Alain Prost was better than Ayrton Senna.

  8. Amazing performance of Perez, most underrated driver of the whole grid. His performance in street tracks like Monaco or Singapore are second to none, specially in the last two years

      1. @peartree What about him lol

      2. @aminsarur, @peartree, @lolzerbob If none = Vettel, Hamilton, Alonso, I’d even add Rosberg, Ricciardo, …

        1. Rosberg was the definition of mediocrity this year in Monaco

    1. Tbh I don’t think Perez is underrated. On this site maybe, people think Hulk’s better, but in general, I hear a lot more about Perez being incredibly good, and I’d say that a lot more fans rate Perez above Hulkenberg simply by looking at the podiums and stuff. Hulkenberg is perceived to be better on this site but worse in the rest of the world from my experience. Of course I’m a Hulk fan (he’s my #1 now JB’s retired), so I’m going to think he’s better, but in my honest opinion, Hulk is faster and a better overtaker but Perez is better on his tyres, more consistent and better over a race distance. Although Hulk is also a lot more unlucky.

      1. Not my intention to pick up an argument, I mostly agree with you except for the overtaking part, and I grant Hulk as a good overtaker, but I still think Pérez is better, as Bahréin 2014 demostrated, some deffence así well, non of that blocking Verstappen crap

      2. both are amazing drivers

  9. Guybrush Threepwood
    9th January 2017, 20:22

    I think Hulkemberg was both a beneficiary and victim of what I now call Brundleberg syndrome. Hulkenberg was given a lot of credit by people (such as Martin Brundle) when he was in the Sauber, however what they failed to realize was just how bad his team mate was performing at the time (Gutierrez). This skewed people’s perception of what Hulkenberg’s true talent was. It’s no wonder those same people have gone very quiet since Hulkenberg has been with a quality driver in Perez.

    1. Since he has been with a quality driver and beaten him?

      1. Guybrush Threepwood
        10th January 2017, 16:25

        Beaten him once out of three years. While Perez is quality, he isnt outstanding and you would have expected Hulkenberg to do more against him going by the inflation of his reputation that a few commentators provided.

  10. Since 2013:
    Perez 4 Podiums
    McLaren 2 Podiums
    Hulkenberg 0 Podiums
    Hahaha, British media is so biased and can’t accept this kid has a lot of talent,
    In the end what matters is points, if Hul vs Per was a WDC fight it would be 2 vs 1 in favour of Perez.

    1. it would be luck to 1 in favour of hulk

  11. Sergio Pastrana
    9th January 2017, 21:14

    I would have to pick Perez as the top performer. Regardless of the reasons for his 4 podiums to Nico’s none. He scored more points in those 3 years, ensuring the team a better WCC position. He also allowed the team to showcase its sponsors on the podium in 4 different occasions. Only 1 other podium has been scored in the team’s history. His racecraft has impressed more than a few.

  12. These two drivers are hard to compare.

    On the one hand, you can’t argue with the points haul Perez got over Hulkenberg. We’re not talking just 5 points and a clear single example of a reliability DNF like if you’re debating Hamilton Vs Rosberg. Perez in ’15 and ’16 brought home a sizable amount of extra points over Hulkenberg, and multiple podiums are not a fluke. When Hulkenberg is dicing with drivers like Hamilton or Alonso he usually holds his own very well, but he gets in trouble with the midfield more than Alonso would.

    On the other hand, I don’t see the same wheel to wheel ability in Perez that you see in Hulkenberg. Perez just seems to have a knack for keeping his nose clean and being on track at the right time to capitalise on results that fall in his lap and tyre management skills that make going long strategies work.

    But in all honesty, I don’t think either are world championship contenders. Perez in a top car against the elite would not have the edge going wheel to wheel, and tyre management is less a problem at the front. Hulkenberg might show flashes of brilliance at the front, but I suspect we’d also see a greater liability to get into trouble than even Hamilton had this year which would cost him.

    They’re both in the right teams.

  13. Last three years Perez won 0 races. Hulkenberg won the greatest race of all.

    Perez vot kicked from top team, Hulkenberg got picked by team aiming to be top in a few years …

    Despite Perez awesome podiums, seems Hulkenberg is winning.

    1. If it isn’t cherry picking, I don’t know what it is…

    2. Lol. Drugs?

    3. Buddy, your comment really makes me laugh. Hahahahaha

  14. Two great drivers who both helped the team immensely. If I had to pick one of them, i’d go for Hulkenberg. I think bad luck and at times a lack of motivation, is what stopped him from achieving more. Respect to Perez though, his career could have ended after Mclaren dumped him. He redeemed himself at Force India.

  15. I think this particular battle shows that without a top drive, drivers are held up in their development.

    The statistics show that hulk is the better qualifier but on Sundays they’re evenly matched; and no other conclusions can be made without resorting to unverifiable assumptions. Would hulk beat Lewis in equal machinery? Nobody knows because Nico has not had the pressure to deliver wins every race, nor has he been scrutinized as much. Can Pérez’s skillset be optimized to win championships? Impossible to tell as McLaren in 2013 was not a top drive that aspired for that. Knowing what we now know about McLaren we can be certain that the pressure on Pérez isn’t the same Ricciardo is subject to.

  16. I was a great great fan of McLaren and Ron Dennis in former times (since 84). When Ron had a lot of mistakes like fire Montoya, Brundle, Blundell, Mansell, etc, I used to justify his points of view, but I knew he was really wrong. When Checo entered to the team after great performances with a very small team Sauber and failed in the top level, I knew that it was terrible thing, but then Withmarsh was also fired and then Jenson didn´t have a great season, so Checo was in problems, but also the team… and I think, In Force India he showed he´s a great driver, maybe better than Hulk, maybe not, but in Europe is double hard to get any respect or recognition for a foreigner, and it is ok, because he has to be overwhelming, and I think that for him, the best is yet to come. For Hulk, honestly I don´t care…

  17. Hey guys, I’ve been a F1 fan since 84.

    Being Mexican, and not having a Mexican driver on the grid, ended up me cheering for Prost, then Senna & Prost ( leaning towards Prost but amazaed by Senna), then Schumi, then Villenueve, then Montoya, then Alonso, then Alonso & Hamilton, ( leaning towards Alonso but amazed by Hamilton), never really cheered for Vettel, now amazed by Verstapen….

    By the time time Perez got to F1, I was surprised on his first F1 Race, and followed him closely since then, then he totally surprised me with his 2012 season and highlights, and I was also identifying the Hulk as apossible future star, 2013 was disapointong for both, but exciting to look at both guys strugling wity messy cars.

    According to my previous likes of drivers:

    A)- Brains, consistency and speed -> Prost, Schumi & Alonso.

    B)-Super Speed, amazing moves, dareness and passion over brains -> Senna, Villenueve, Montoya, Hamilton & Verstapen.

    I see Hulkenberg is my A) pick, and Perez my B) pick.

    Off course, different styles mixed together make the best for fans.

    One out of the subject question:

    Before joining Red Bull, was Riccardio actually seen better than Hulk or Checo?

    My answer: not at all, he was an average driver closely matched with Vergne.

    Back to business, let’s say you retire todays active Champions, and you keep Verstapen and Riccardio in Red Bull, and put Hulk, Perez, Bottas, Grossean, and other rising stars in top teams…

    Woudn’t that be Great?!

    Who will end up as Champions for the First 3 years? For sure no one will do a 3 year back to back Championships, possibly a mix between 2 or 3 of them will happen.

    Would you assure Hulk or Perez will be one of the champions?

    Who will win more races, more poles, more fast laps & more podiums?

    My guess:

    Both have a shot at the Championship.

    Perez will have more wins than Hulkenberg.

    Hulkenberg will have more poles than Perez.

    Hulkenberg will have more fast laps than Perez.

    Perez will have more podiums than Hulkenberg.

    By the way.. I highly rank the Hulk, regardless being a Perez fan.

    Having both guys in the same top team, would be like another Senna-Prost era, and not necessarily with Checo being Senna and Hulk being Prost, nor viceversa.. just a very enjoyable era to watch!

    By the way, in their 3 years together, they only crashed against each other once, would that statistic change when fighting for the championship??

    Couldn’t resist to share this with you guys, as I see the passion in your comments. I’m Not trying to be the expert, just saying what is going thru my mind as I read your thoughts.

    1. Same, however, I think Nico will gain his first victory before Checo.

    2. Same, however, I think Nico will gain his first victory before Checo.

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