Nyck de Vries has won the court case filed against him by investor Jeroen Schothorst after he cleared his name.
The Dutch media reported of AlphaTauri’s de Vries being involved in a court case early in January against his former lender Schothorst, who provided him with money for his F2 campaign in 2018 with Prema. The deal also had F1 implications.
The clause was for him to pay interest money to Schothorst if he makes it to F1 by 2022 season and if he doesn’t then his loan would be eventually waived off. Considering he drove for Williams at Monza replacing Alexander Albon, they took him as a full-time racer.
But de Vries argued he was still a reserve driver at Mercedes and that his one-off outing didn’t constitute to him being a F1 driver. As such, Schothorst demanded of a full payment wherein the 250,000 euros constitutes three percent interest and also 50% of his salary/income from his F1 activities as per the contract.
The judge eventually ruled in favour of de Vries and agreed that he was still a full-time reserve driver and a one-off drive didn’t made him a full-time F1 driver. Even though Schothorst argued that the Dutchman didn’t provide him with details, the judge was clear in his ruling in favour of the AlphaTauri driver.
The court hearing also had de Vries presenting that he paid Schothorst against his earnings of €150,000 from his reserve role at Mercedes in 2022 which was done in a two part payment of €75,000.
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