Quick Nick was a great driver. He's one of the best not to win a race. Had BMW not ended their development of the 2008 car I think he could have nicked a race win that season.

Quick Nick might hold the record for the most podiums without a win in both F1 and Formula E (the latter shared with fellow German André Lotterer), but in my opinion that just shows that he was always a very solid operator, and I guess quite underrated as a result. I came across an article from The Race a few years ago which was ranking every Formula E driver at the time (it was in 2020; they ranked him 13th by the way) and it said about Heidfeld, that he was, and I quote, "a major development weapon." He might not have had the outright speed of some drivers, and was often the bridesmaid in terms of results, but I think he had a pretty great career all in all. I never understood why he was suddenly dropped by Renault after the 2011 Hungarian GP. At least his last action in F1 was a memorable one, albeit for the wrong reasons, what with his exploding sidepod (thank you forward facing exhaust)!

Do we know the reason why he couldn’t get the tyres working in qualifying?

Nick always seemed a tad too cerebral to be a top F1 driver. Great career nonetheless, although he never won in Formula E either