Whilst a plethora of German drivers are currently competing at the top end of the grid, it can be easy to forget the ultimate nearly man who many tipped to be the best of the bunch.

Nick Heidfeld managed to jump up the formulae at an impressive rate of knots – five years of karting, beginning at the tender age of 11, led him to the German Formula Ford 1600 Championship, where he took eight wins from nine races. Success followed at the International German Formula Ford 1800 Championship, where he again dominated, before third place in his first season of German Formula 3 Championship. Undeterred, he stormed to the title the season after, taking five wins, with one coming at the F3 Monaco GP.

From here, it’s easy to understand just why Heidfeld picked up the mantra of ‘Quick Nick.’ McLaren agreed, handing the young German his first ever drive of an F1 car as a reward for his efforts. His impressive showing secured a test driver role for the following 1999 and 2000, where he competed in the European Formula 3000 Championship. Nick finished runner-up to eventual F1 rival Juan Pablo Montoya in ’99, but only after a fuel cock-up in qualifying sent Heidfeld from first to last on the grid in the final grand prix of the season – robbing Quick Nick of the chance to steal the title from Montoya’s grasp. In predictable fashion, he stormed to the title in the season after.

With McLaren’s driver line-up of David Coulthard and Mika Hakkinen proving record-breakingly impossible to budge, Heidfeld was resigned to leaving the Mercedes-backed team to secure a drive with the elite of motorsport, eventually securing a drive with the ailing Prost team. However, elite is hardly what the 2000 Prost car could be described as – words like ‘unreliable’, ‘off-the-pace’ and ’a complete dog’ are perhaps more applicable. Even the great Jean Alesi couldn’t muster a point driving the AP03, but he still managed to distinctly outclass his less experienced teammate. However, Peter Sauber had built up a legacy of giving younger drivers a chance, and took him to Sauber for the following season.

And this is where things really began to take off for the young German. The driver line-up of Heidfeld and unheard of Finn Kimi Raikkonen were written off before the season, yet they strolled to a 4-6 finish at the season opener in Melbourne. The points continued to flow, with a memorable podium finish at a rain-hit Brazilian grand prix following just two races later. A total of seven points finishes put Quick Nick level on points with ex-champ Jacques Villeneuve, with the team’s fourth place in the constructors championship being Sauber’s best ever independent finish.

From here, things took a heartbreaking turn for Heidfeld though. Despite the maturity, speed and experience that he’d managed to galvanise at the highest level, when Mika Hakkinen left McLaren, they chose his teammate Raikkonen to replace him. Having outperformed the Finn over the season, there was to be no dream of a German back with Mercedes, as a Finn replaced the Finn. Underfunded Sauber began to fall off the pace next season, with Heidfeld managing just four points finishes over a teammate supported by Ferrari – though he could take comfort in the fact that the erratic Felipe Massa was outperformed and ended up demoted to a test driver. Meanwhile, Raikkonen finished 6th in the championship, narrowly losing the chance of a first win when slipping on oil from Alan McNish’s Toyota at Magny Cours. The best Heidfeld managed was a fourth place at Spain, with plenty more headlines made after a terrifying T-bone of Takuma Sato having locking his rear brakes after a safety car in Austria. He’ll be one of the few people happy to have seen Rubens Barrichello pull over and gift Michael Schumacher the controversial win at this race – it gave people something different to talk about.

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