In a recent podcast interview, Nyck de Vries reflects on his brief Formula 1 journey. In 2023, the Dutchman raced ten times for the then AlphaTauri, before he was ruthlessly replaced by Daniel Ricciardo. While Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko described the gamble with De Vries as ‘his biggest mistake’, the Frisian driver states that he was under extra pressure at the time.
Nyck de Vries made a grand debut in 2023 with AlphaTauri, the then subsidiary team of Red Bull. The young driver had earned his stripes in Formula 2 and Formula E and had proven during a stand-in stint at Williams that he could also handle a Formula 1 car. Expectations were high. However, the Dutchman almost immediately paled in comparison to Yuki Tsunoda. After ten races, the Red Bull top brass made the decision and De Vries was sacrificed.
“That was a challenge,” De Vries recently admitted in the Cool Room podcast. “But I bear no grudges. I am actually grateful for the opportunity I was given. I was also able to realize a boyhood dream, even though it was a short chapter in my career.” After the Formula 1 adventure, he returned to Formula E with Mahindra Racing. “I was lucky that I had already built a career. Other drivers who have to leave Formula 1 prematurely have nothing to fall back on. I had already raced in Formula E and WEC, so that made a comeback easier.”
‘Extra Pressure’
Helmut Marko, a long-standing advisor at Red Bull and one of the main decision-makers for the team’s driver lineup, recently described the signing of Nyck de Vries as his ‘biggest mistake’. “He (De Vries) had an incredible CV,” Marko told the Italian Autosprint. “But the stopwatch doesn’t lie – he was clearly the wrong choice.” De Vries defended himself by stating that he felt extra pressure from the team.
“You feel a double pressure,” the Dutchman explained. “From the media, you feel an external pressure, but from the team, you are also internally tested. Everything you do is put under a microscope. You feel that you are being written and talked about day and night. I tried to just ignore it, but you still feel that pressure.” After the first races, doubts were already being raised about De Vries’ competence. “From the second weekend, there was already talk of a change,” he concluded. “That didn’t help me perform well.”
