For almost a decade, Guelph's Robert Wickens has been one of Canada's best athletes generally unknown in Canada. The racing driver's career mainly involved competing in Europe, and with the Canadian media's atrocious coverage1 of world motorsports, he was known only to the most die-hard of Canadian motorsport fans. That changed this past Sunday, March 11th, as Wickens, now in the North American Indycar series (with actual television coverage in Canada), dominated the season-opening race in St. Petersburg Florida, grabbing pole-position and leading most of the race, only to have victory snatched from him with two laps remaining when he was punted into the wall.
Hello Canada.
Hello Robert!
Wickens' wonderful performance was not a surprise to those fans who followed his European career—he's had success and won races in all the various levels he has competed. Success that, when looked at closely, shows he's not only deserved more recognition in his home country but that he has also deserved a spot in, dare I say, Formula One?
Like most racing drivers Wickens' career started in karting, and he first moved to the Formula BMW USA series, which he won in 2006, becoming the first North American to win one of the world-wide Formula BMW series. Other Formula BMW series winners? They include current or ex-Formula One drivers Timo Glock, Nico Hulkenberg, Esteban Gutiérrez, Alexander Rossi, Rio Haryanto, Felipe Nasr, and Marcus Ericsson. Not good enough company? Then how about Nico Rosberg and Sebastian Vettel, both Formula One world champions?
In 2007 Wickens finished third in the North American-based Formula Atlantic championship, as a rookie, winning once, with two fastest laps and a pole.
He then made what would be his decade-long move to racing in Europe. There, he competed in a number of the top-level feeder series, (or single-seater series just below Formula One) and had success in all of them.
He won races in all the series he competed in full-time, and won, scored podiums, or finished higher than the full-time drivers in some of the series he did only part-time.
Race wins came in the A1 Grand Prix series, Formula Renault 3.5, Formula 3 Euro series, the FIA Formula Two series and the GP3 series. He finished second in the championship in both Formula Two and GP3—two of the most important series for feeding drivers into Formula One. This success came competing against, and beating, many ex- and current Formula One drivers: Hulkenberg, Jules Bianchi, Brendon Hartley, Jolyon Palmer, Daniel Ricciardo, Max Chilton, Rossi, Haryanto along with many other great drivers, including, for example, current Indycar champion Josef Newgarden.
His best season in Europe single-seaters was in 2011 when he won the Formula Renault 3.5 championship ahead of Jean-Eric Vergne (2nd), Rossi (3rd), Ricciardo (5th) and Hartley (7th), all men who have competed in Formula One.
That year he also got a taste of Formula One serving as the third driver for the horrible Marussia Virgin Formula One team, getting some track time in practice for the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
With this success in open-wheel racing, before the age of 22, Mercedes hired Wickens for its Mercedes-Benz Junior Team, placing him in the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters (DTM) series, (or, the German Touring Car series), a closed-cockpit, closed wheel 'regular car' style series. The DTM is one of the highest caliber series in the world though, and many future, current and ex-Formula One drivers have driven in it (and still do). These include David Coulthard, Ralf Schumacher, Pascal Wehrlein, Paul di Resta and Timo Glock, to name a few.
Wickens, after winning the DTM race at the Nurburgring in 2017. Photo from Facebook
Wickens would compete in the DTM for six seasons, leaving after the 2017 season when Mercedes announced it would withdraw after the 2018 season. Over those six seasons the Mercedes car was the worst-performing, finishing 3rd (and last) in all but one of Wickens' seasons behind Audi and BMW. In the other season (this latest season, 2017) it finished 2nd. Despite this, Wickens though, was the best and most consistent Mercedes driver over that time with the most wins for Mercedes, 6, and the second most-points at 429, behind Gary Paffett's 483. (That entire gap though can be accredited to Wickens' rookie season2, where he scored 10 points to Paffett's 145.) That season, 2012, was the sole season he did not win a race in DTM. Wickens' record of wins and points would be even more impressive if not for some strange disqualifications and circumstances that prevented him from winning potentially another three races.3
It seems only natural then, having won in every series he has competed in full-time, that an Indycar win would not be unexpected this season. The fact the win almost came so quickly, in his first ever Indycar race, would perhaps be a bit surprising, but not to those who have seen his past success and the drivers he has competed against, and beaten.
1: For example, two of the world's biggest and most popular motorsports series, Formula E, and the World Rally Championship, have no English-language television coverage in Canada. Nor do the FIA's other 'world championship' series, the World Endurance, World Touring, or World Rallycross championships.
2: Interestingly Canada's 'other' unknown motorsports hero, Bruno Spengler, won the DTM championship for BMW in 2012, Wickens' rookie season.
3: In 2013 Wickens finished 2nd at the Norisring behind first-placed finisher Mattias Ekstrom, who was subsequently disqualified. Strangely they did not award the win to Wickens, but declared the race as having no winner. I have never seen this before or since. In 2014, Wickens was dominating the race at the Red Bull Ring in Spielberg, Austria when he was harshly disqualified. Replays clearly showed he did not do the infraction he was accused of. And lastly, in 2015, while he was much quicker at the Norisring than team-mate Pascal Wehrlein, and could have passed him at any time for the win, Mercedes issued team orders not allowing Wickens to pass Wehrlein, and he had to settle for 2nd place.
2: Interestingly Canada's 'other' unknown motorsports hero, Bruno Spengler, won the DTM championship for BMW in 2012, Wickens' rookie season.
3: In 2013 Wickens finished 2nd at the Norisring behind first-placed finisher Mattias Ekstrom, who was subsequently disqualified. Strangely they did not award the win to Wickens, but declared the race as having no winner. I have never seen this before or since. In 2014, Wickens was dominating the race at the Red Bull Ring in Spielberg, Austria when he was harshly disqualified. Replays clearly showed he did not do the infraction he was accused of. And lastly, in 2015, while he was much quicker at the Norisring than team-mate Pascal Wehrlein, and could have passed him at any time for the win, Mercedes issued team orders not allowing Wickens to pass Wehrlein, and he had to settle for 2nd place.
