Nico Hülkenberg is born

The Hulk With the Umlauts As it’s Friday, we always prefer to turn our sights to all things fast and fanciful. And you can’t get much more rapid and hunky than the man dubbed ‘The Very Quick German’ (by me) Nico Hülkenberg. It was on this day in 1987 that the Formula 1 wunderkind entered the world with a certain amount of assumed rapidity.

He soon became a rather nifty karting racer, nicknamed The Hulk by his manager due to his personality change behind the wheel (and not, it seems, because his name already has the word ‘Hulk’ in it). Nico blasted his way through the various lowlier Formulas until he emerged as a top, proper F1 driver in 2010 making his debut at the Bahrain Grand Prix, coming in at a decent 13th. He’s gone on to have a respectable career with Williams and Force India and also won the Le Mans endurance race at his first attempt in 2015. Not too shabby, as they say in Germany.