{"id":19860,"date":"2013-11-13T06:53:54","date_gmt":"2013-11-13T11:53:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/?p=19860"},"modified":"2013-11-13T06:53:54","modified_gmt":"2013-11-13T11:53:54","slug":"hulkenberg-turned-down-offer-to-replace-raikkonen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/formula-1\/hulkenberg-turned-down-offer-to-replace-raikkonen\/","title":{"rendered":"Hulkenberg turned down offer to replace Raikkonen"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Nico Hulkenberg turned down an offer from Lotus to replace the surgery-bound Kimi Raikkonen for the remaining two grands prix of 2013.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"ngg-singlepic ngg-left alignleft\" style=\"margin: 5px 10px;\" alt=\"Nico-Hulkenberg-car-1\" src=\"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/gallery\/f1-2013-rif-images\/f1-2013-drivers\/Nico-Hulkenberg-car-1.jpg\" width=\"384\" height=\"256\" \/>German Hulkenberg, who currently drives for Sauber, is the hot favourite to replace Raikkonen full-time in 2014, but only if financially-struggling Lotus completes its crucial investment deal with the Quantum group.<\/p>\n<p>If that deal collapses, as many insiders believe it will, Pastor Maldonado &#8211; who will not drive for Williams next season &#8211; is tipped to switch his lucrative PDVSA backing to the Enstone based team.<\/p>\n<p>Nevertheless, late on Tuesday Hulkenberg&#8217;s manager Werner Heinz revealed that, in the past days, Lotus expressed interest in the 26-year-old racing in Raikkonen&#8217;s place in Austin this weekend, and then the Brazil finale a week later.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We were presented an offer that we are exploring now,&#8221; Heinz was quoted by the SID news agency.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Within the next two days, a decision will be made.\u00a0 But this does not mean that Nico is leaving Sauber,&#8221; he added.<\/p>\n<p>Indeed, with apparently no guarantee of the full 2014 race seat, moving to Lotus now would appear to be a risk for the otherwise highly-rated Hulkenberg.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s a big risk,&#8221; agreed German-language F1 commentator Christian Danner, according to Bild newspaper.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He would have to get used to a new car in the space of three practice sessions &#8212; usually you need months.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>After a short period of reflection, Heinz told Bild: &#8220;We had an offer from Lotus and we discussed it.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We decided that Nico will do the last two races with Sauber.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Lotus reserve driver Davide Valsecchi, a F1 rookie and last year&#8217;s GP2 champion, is now the favourite to replace Raikkonen in Austin and Brazil.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #888888;\"><em>\u00a9 RIF | GMM<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Nico Hulkenberg turned down an offer from Lotus to replace the surgery-bound Kimi Raikkonen for the remaining two grands prix of 2013. German Hulkenberg, who currently drives for Sauber, is the hot favourite to replace Raikkonen full-time in 2014, but only if financially-struggling Lotus completes its crucial investment deal with the Quantum group. If that &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[3],"tags":[5262,5340,152,306,448],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19860"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19860"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19860\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19861,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19860\/revisions\/19861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19860"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}