Official: Barrichello and Hülkenberg will drive for Williams in 2010

Williams team confirmed this morning that the driver duo for next season will consist of veteran Rubens Barrichello and recent GP2 champion Nico Hülkenberg.

The announcement was made almost as soon as the 2009 season ended and follows the announcement by driver Nico Rosberg in Abu Dhabi that he would leave the team during the winter. Kazuki Nakajima, who held the second Williams seat for the past two years, will have to find another team.

The deal with Rubens Barrichello seems to have been concluded at the Japanese Grand Prix, shortly after the Brazilian driver visited the Williams facilities. Barrichello, after a rather solid year with Brawn GP, will hence begin his 18th season in Formula One and will surpass the milestone of 300 GP races, which excites him. It will be his fifth team after Jordan, Stewart, Ferrari, and Honda, which became Brawn GP in 2009. His motivation remains intact.

The most important thing is what you think of yourself, Barrichello insisted when questioned about his motivation, I have always paid more attention to that than to the rest.

People always say that you’re only as good as your last race. Yet in the last race of the last season (2008) we looked very bad and that’s how it is. I knew I had to stay in shape, I knew I was still fast. I wasn’t just selling experience to the team, because experience is free, but my enthusiasm. That’s what lifted me up this season.

Frank Williams is rather of the same opinion and will therefore trust him for 2010. “Rubens needs no introduction,” he sighs. “He is not only the most experienced driver in Formula 1 but also a passionate and talented driver who fought hard for the championship this year.”

Nico Hülkenberg, who dominated the 2009 GP2 championship with the Art Grand Prix team, was signed by Williams at the end of his season. He will become the fourth GP2 champion to be directly promoted to Formula One, after Nico Rosberg, Lewis Hamilton, and Timo Glock. Nico Hülkenberg was also Williams’ reserve driver in 2008. The young German has previously won the F3 Euro Series, Formula Master, A1 GP, and the German Formula BMW, thus having an impressive record in the so-called promotional formulas.

The team boss, Frank Williams, believes that the combination of youth and experience would help push the team towards the front of the grid. Williams has not won since the last Grand Prix of the 2004 season in Brazil, with Juan-Pablo Montoya.

The signing confirms that Williams’ two 2009 drivers will leave the team. Rosberg is highly expected to join Brawn GP alongside Jenson Button, while Nakajima’s future seems more uncertain. He has ties with Toyota, but his compatriot Kamui Kobayashi delivered two very good races in his Formula One debut, scoring significant points for Toyota, much more than the 3 points noted on paper. It seems unlikely that Toyota will field two Japanese drivers.