What Nico Hulkenberg did at the British Grand Prix that Martin Brundle thought was ‘extraordinary’

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Haas are a team firmly in the midfield this season after finishing bottom of Formula 1’s Constructors’ Championship last year.

Ayao Komatsu’s team have already eclipsed their total points tally from last season with the British Grand Prix marking the halfway stage of this campaign.

Kevin Magnussen has had a decent campaign for Haas but it’s yet to be seen whether that’ll be enough to earn him a drive in 2025.

However, his teammate Nico Hulkenberg is arguably in the best form of his Formula 1 career.

Sauber don’t have very much to cheer about this year, but they’ll be delighted that Hulkenberg is already signed up for next season.

The German guided his Haas to 6^th in qualifying for the British Grand Prix and commentating on the session for Sky Sports F1, Martin Brundle has explained what was so extraordinary about his performance.

It was a bad day for Ferrari who saw both of their drivers beaten by Hulkenberg in the customer car.

While they will expect to overtake the German once the race begins, they only need to ask Sergio Perez about his race in Austria to discover that could be easier said than done.

READ MORE: Haas driver Nico Hulkenberg’s life outside F1 from wife to height

Martin Brundle hails ‘extraordinary’ Nico Hulkenberg during British Grand Prix qualifying

Covering qualifying at Silverstone, David Croft said: “It’s that time in qualifying when we saw, here comes Nico Hulkenberg and he’s just set the fastest time in the first sector.

“So, the qualifying supremo, five Q3 appearances so far this season for the Haas team, who’s now just five points off the top ten, isn’t he Nico Hulkenberg after Austria pushing on hard.”

Brundle: “Yeah, 135mph was his minimum speed through Becketts, that’s extraordinary.”

READ MORE: Everything you need to know about Haas F1 Team from team principal to Ferrari relationship

Nico Hulkenberg one of Formula 1’s most in-form drivers

Hulkenberg will be starting Sunday’s race from the third row but there was one point in the final session of qualifying where it looked like it could get even better.

While many drivers struggled to improve their times during their final runs, Hulkenberg ended up setting the fastest sector one out of the entire field.

It says an awful lot that his teammate Magnussen went out in Q1, although the changeable conditions at that point in qualifying make it difficult to read too much into that result.

Once things settled down, Hulkenberg breezed into Q3, setting a time that was just four thousandths behind Sainz in Q2 only to beat him when it really mattered.

Hulkenberg is closing in on a place in the top ten in the championship, sitting just five points behind Yuki Tsunoda.

RB’s latest set of updates don’t appear to be working, while they’re split by Lance Stroll in an equally tough-to-drive Aston Martin.

Hulkenberg’s old team principal Guenther Steiner has described Hulkenberg as the underrated driver on the grid.

He has just a single pole position to his name and is yet to finish on the podium after more than 200 Grand Prix.

It would take an extraordinary set of circumstances for that to change on Sunday, but he’s putting himself in a position to score points on a weekly basis at this stage of the campaign.