MEDLAND: Time for Hulkenberg to step out of the shadows

"He's probably one of the most accomplished drivers to have never stood on the podium, and that's just by bad luck really. He should have had a few podiums in his career."

High praise indeed.

That's how Force India's chief operating officer Otmar Szafnauer views Nico Hulkenberg, the driver whom Force India released from his contract to allow him to move to Renault for this coming season.

Hulkenberg's move came about in a slightly strange way, with the German joining Renault only after former Force India team-mate Sergio Perez had turned down an offer from the French manufacturer. Renault was also known to be interested in Carlos Sainz, while an approach for Valtteri Bottas failed, too.

Kevin Magnussen cited a lack of commitment from Renault towards its drivers as one of the reasons why he opted to take up an offer from Haas, but Hulkenberg has no doubts that he is making the right move.

"Of course I had to think about it because I know that Force India is a good place, I really like the people and we came a long way together, so I had to think hard about it," Hulkenberg tells RACER. "But when I put everything together, for me it was clear that I wanted to move to Renault to be with a factory team. As much as I liked the people and the place at Force India, this is what I wanted for myself and for my career.

"For me this is a very logical decision to move. Obviously if you look at Renault now it doesn't look great, but if you think like that you're pretty short-sighted and you don't understand how the sport works. It's about the next couple of years, and what we're putting together is a pretty solid team and setting up for bigger things. It's a challenge, but I like challenges and I think we can do something good.

"Winning races, becoming world champion, that's obviously something very big, but I've learned at Force India you just have to try and control the things you can, but there's a lot of things and subjects that you cannot control. So I just think and work with the things that I really have an influence on."

While Hulkenberg is highly-rated - to the extent Mercedes asked about his contract situation when seeking a replacement for Nico Rosberg - he has yet to stand on the podium in Formula 1. In isolation it's not a statistic that is cause for concern, but there are other factors that suggest the coming year is a big one for the German.

Many drivers reach F1 on the crest of a wave, and Hulkenberg earned himself the spotlight by winning the GP2 title in his rookie season in 2009. Not only did he beat more experienced drivers who would also reach F1 – including Romain Grosjean, whom he was leading by 12 points when the Frenchman was called up mid-season to race for Renault - Hulkenberg was the first driver to win the title before the final race weekend.

Hulkenberg's achievements seeded plenty of hype surrounding his potential. Having been put through his paces at Williams - in every sense, spending time working for the team in various departments as part of his apprenticeship - the German was viewed as a future world champion. A bold prediction, but not necessarily an unreasonable one: the only other two drivers to win the GP2 title in their rookie season both went on to win F1 crowns: Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg.

Having announced his arrival in F1 with a pole position at the end of his first season for Williams [pictured], Hulkenberg still lost his race seat the following year. Pastor Maldonado - the team-mate he'd beaten by 64 points in GP2 - replaced him and went on to become a grand prix winner. Once back on the grid, things were looking up for Hulkenberg when, in his first year racing for Force India, he beat team-mate Paul di Resta by 17 points in the drivers' championship. The year ended with perhaps Hulkenberg's best race as he nearly won in Brazil, eventually finishing fifth after tangling with Lewis Hamilton while fighting for the lead.

"Going back to [Brazil] 2012, for large parts of the race... that could have been a very special day, for sure," he recalls. "I was leading the race by 50 seconds before the safety car came out, and that's almost a guaranteed race win. I don't know how you can lose 50 seconds of race time - it's almost a lap in Brazil!

"So things were looking very good, but obviously the story went a bit different. Then obviously trying to overtake Lewis for the lead ... I don't really regret that, because I'm a racer and that's what I'm here to do, to get to the front and compete for the best. Of course the ending wasn't the best, but circumstances were tricky as well, so I don't regret that so much."

The following year, Hulkenberg joined Sauber and his stock continued to rise as he secured a career-best fourth place in Korea, and outclassed Esteban Gutierrez by 45 points. He returned to Force India and duly beat Perez the following season, this time by 37 points.

Since then, however, Hulkenberg's star has faded somewhat. Perez got the better of the battle to the tune of 20 points in 2015 and then 29 points last year, scoring podiums in all three years that the pair were team-mates..

"Of course it would be nice [to have a podium], but for many different reasons it hasn't happened," Hulkenberg says. "I think there were a few opportunities over the years at Force India. Sometimes it was down to ourselves that we made a bad call, or we made a mistake and it didn't come.

"There was some bad luck, so there was always something that wasn't right or was in our way, but I wouldn't let it blind ourselves from the fact we had good years together. We didn't achieve a podium - it would have been nice, I'm not denying that and I would have loved to achieve it, but still, if I look back at what we did together, I think we can be pretty happy with what we did."

In many senses, he's right. As a team, Force India has thrived and Hulkenberg was a big part of that success, securing fourth in the constructors' championship in 2016. But in the three consecutive years that he and Perez have raced together, the Mexican has rebuilt his reputation following an ill-fated year at McLaren, while Hulkenberg has stagnated.

The 2015 Le Mans victory [pictured] shows the quality Hulkenberg has, but it also suggests he has yet to fully deliver on his potential in F1. While the 29-year-old rightly views his move to Enstone as an opportunity to challenge for wins in future, he insists he didn't need a change of environment to reach the next level as a driver.

"Not necessarily that; I'm always on my toes and always work on a high, professional level," he says. "It's just look at the time I joined Force India to the time I left, what we've done and what we've achieved, the road it has been, I think it's going to be quite hard to match or go much higher.

"That's one thing, and I felt I wanted a new challenge with a new team, to start somewhere new. With Renault being a manufacturer I just see good potential here in the future that they can also provide me with a good car that allows me to compete for good results."

Renault has put its faith in Hulkenberg with a multi-year deal, seeing him as the driver to build its team around. Although a man who played a big part in convincing him to join - team principal Frederic Vasseur (whose ART team had fielded Hulkenberg in Formula 3 and GP2) - has now left, the team has the resources to deliver a major improvement on last year's showing. There is no guarantee, and Hulkenberg says he has shown he is committed, too, by agreeing a long-term deal rather than leaving himself free when more top seats could be available at the end of 2017.

"Yeah, I am [showing commitment]," he insists. "I've been there, done that [keeping options open] and I've fallen on my ass with that before. So I'm not going to do that, I'm pretty committed to Renault and I look forward to that time and the project."

It would be bad enough if Renault struggles again this year - with Hulkenberg turning 30 he needs results to follow soon. Regardless of the car's competitiveness, however, the German must stamp his authority on the team and be the driving force towards success, otherwise he risks becoming a midfield journeyman who Renault will replace with a proven winner if the team reaches that level.