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Life begins at 40, or so the old saying goes. Although for racing drivers, that seldom rings true, as at that age most are either considering hanging up their helmet or have been put out to pasture by a sport that’s always on the look-out for the next hot young thing.
A few weeks ago, Nick Heidfeld reached that landmark age, but it’s certainly not dimmed his competitive edge, in fact, since turning 40 he’s delivered back-to-back podium finishes for the Mahindra Racing team.
“40 is just a number and currently I’m not struggling and it makes me very happy that I’m still very competitive,” he says.
For fans of Formula 1, Heidfeld has the misfortune of being remembered as the driver who recorded the most podium finishes without a win, but to fans of the wider world of motorsport, Heidfeld was seen as one of the most promising young talents to come up through the ranks in the 1990s, winning the championship in everything he competed in. And while he’s yet to taste the victory champagne in Formula E thus far, he’s absolutely determined to fight for the title.
“My target is to win this championship. In Formula 1 it didn’t happen, but I wasn’t there just to make up the ranks. I won all the championships I did apart from F1 so I want to do the same in Formula E.”
There was a sliding doors moment in Heidfeld’s F1 career, where things could have turned out very differently. Since his time in German F3, he had backing from Mercedes-Benz. This stayed with him through two successful campaigns in F3000 and into a testing role with the McLaren Formula 1 team.
So when Mika Hakkinen announced his retirement at the end of 2001, Heidfeld was viewed by many as the obvious replacement. However, in the end the team opted for his team-mate at Sauber, a young Finn by the name of Kimi Raikkonen…
“I think there are other people who know more about exactly what went on there,” he says coyly. “I also thought I was in a good position, obviously because I was a junior driver I thought I had done everything I had to do with winning all the championships in F3 and F3000 and I was also test driving for them and my feeling was that they were happy with what I did. From all the conversations I had with the people from McLaren-Mercedes I thought I was in a decent position, or a good position, but already in the back of my mind I thought ‘it’s not going perfect and I have a feeling that it might not turn out’. I did everything I could and then they took Kimi. I think in the season I did with Kimi I beat him in both qualifying and the race. That’s not to say that he didn’t do a very good job, he was in his first season I was in my second and he went on to become world champion so you cannot say they made the wrong decision.”
While things didn’t work out with McLaren, Heidfeld still enjoyed a long and successful career that spanned 12 seasons, 183 grands prix and 13 podium finishes. He also raced for an amazing array of teams, starting his career with Prost in 2000 before moving to Sauber and then Jordan. In 2005 he joined Williams, with whom he scored his only pole position. When BMW moved away from Williams and bought Sauber, Heidfeld switched with teams them.
This led to his most successful season in his F1 career – 2007 – where he finished fifth in the standings with almost double the points of his highly-rated team-mate Robert Kubica.
“I was most happy in 2007 because this was the year that I think I performed the best and the car that BMW Sauber built suited me the best,” he says. “I think I maximized the potential of the car at nearly every race. There were two teams that were stronger than us, which we couldn’t really fight. If one of those struggled I was there and took the chance and scored a few podiums, so for me this was the best season, the most enjoyable, where I felt best in the team.”
When BMW pulled the plug on its F1 adventure, Heidfeld moved to Lotus Renault and scored his final podium in Malaysia. To have raced for so many different teams over such a long period is testament to how highly rated he was in the paddock, but it was during his stint as a test driver where he encountered what he considered to be the most professional environment.
“I would have to say the best team was McLaren when I was test driving in 1998, 99,” he says. “I was there when Adrian Newey just arrived from Williams. He introduced a new front wing – maybe this is wrong in hindsight – but it felt like he’d been there for a few days, didn’t even have much time in the windtunnel, and designed something quickly and put it on the car and around Silverstone it was like 0.3s quicker. It felt like even more the car was so much nicer to drive it was amazing. Also, when there was anything to solve, or any new ideas, they were so quick with responding and bringing it to the circuit. I also liked the atmosphere in the team because one might have thought, especially from the outside, that with the way Ron Dennis ran the team, it was a very cold atmosphere and not fun, but it was not like that. It was perfectly organised but we still had a lot of fun. It was amazing.”
Heidfeld has a quirky wry sense of humour – check out his Instagram account for proof – but he’s also a deep, analytical thinker. He was already keeping an eye on Formula E from the moment the FIA announced its intention to run an all-electric championship, and had discussions with a number of teams before ultimately deciding to sign for Venturi for the inaugural season.
While on paper, the results didn’t look that stellar – he was 12th in the points with just a single top three finish – the finishing positions didn’t reflect the pace he and the team had shown, especially in the early part of the season. He was on course for victory in Beijing before contact with Nico Prost in the final corner of the final lap and was leading comfortably in Buenos Aires when he was hit with a penalty for speeding in the pits.
When an offer from Mahindra came through for Season 2, Heidfeld was left with a tricky decision, but the change of teams proved to be the right choice and he’s currently fourth in the standings and last time out in Paris the team recorded its best result to date with Heidfeld third and team-mate Felix Rosenqvist fourth.
“After my F1 career ended, I thought it would be great to drive many different cars because normally in F1 you’re not able to do that. So I tried to drive as many different cars just to have fun and to see what I liked,” he says. And he was true to his word, racing everything from an LMP1 sportscar – and winning Petit Le Mans – to being one of the big-name ‘foreign drivers’ who raced in the V8 Supercars event in Surfers Paradise, as well as turning his hand to GT racing in a variety of different cars.
Formula E complemented a drive in the World Endurance Championship with Rebellion and it’s provided Heidfeld with another opportunity to demonstrate his abilities. This season he’s paired with one of the most highly-rated young drivers in motorsport in Rosenqvist. The Swede is acknowledged as a street racing specialist, and proved his prowess by taking pole position in only his second race. But Heidfeld has more than matched the driver who is 15 years his junior and given himself a slim, outside shot at the championship.
“Without Nico crashing into me in Mexico I would have had four podiums in six races, so I think at the moment I don’t need to worry about my pace!” he reckons. “Saying that I always worry about my pace because as a driver you always think you need to go quicker and improve!”
Formula E is on an equally fast-paced trajectory, with the arrival of OEMs and blue chip sponsors raising the profile of the series considerably. With battery and electric car technology developing rapidly, Heidfeld is convinced that this is a championship with a bright future, but he cautions against letting the cars get too much quicker at the expense of the quality of the racing.
“I think it’s clear from the outside that teams have become a lot more professional and it’s become more expensive and probably a lot more expensive than the teams thought it would be and the way it was planned to be initially,” he suggests. “But as a driver it’s nice thing. You work with more people, more professional people and you develop more – it’s just a lot more fun.
“Now we have more and more manufacturers come in, which should push the championship further forward. I hope that it will stay like it is now, where there is not one guy or one manufacturer who spends a fortune and then wins everything. I think there are some good ideas in place in Formula E and also the fact that there is simply a maximum of 200kw and 28kwh per race, the differences shouldn’t be massive.
“One thing I’m a little bit worried about is if we make the cars too quick is that the races will start to get more boring. OK the cars are not super quick, but for the circuits we normally go to they are quick enough. If you look at other single seaters on street circuits there is no overtaking at all so I think at the moment we have a very nice balance. Obviously we need to show that the technology is moving forward, for a racing driver it’s more fun to go quicker, but more important is that we keep the races exciting. You don’t know at any given moment in a Formula E race who’s going to win until the last lap and this I think is the main thing.”
To find out if Heidfeld can be the man to triumph in Berlin on June 10-11, be sure to follow Formula E on Facebook. Here you can find live coverage of the Shakedown and opening free practices sessions. All other sessions are also streamed live there, but are subjected to geo-restrictions in certain markets.