Former F1 drivers react to Nyck de Vries being axed from his AlphaTauri drive after 10 races as Helmut Marko adds his views.
Another Red Bull moment of dropping a driver mid-season has sparked similar debates about the F1 team being ruthless with their approach. Having hired de Vries from his Mercedes reserve role, he has been replaced by Daniel Ricciardo at AlphaTauri.
The Formula 2 and Formula E champion only managed 10 rounds after years of wait before getting axed due to lack of results. The expectations was for de Vries to at least match Yuki Tsunoda if not be quicker than him but it has fallen flat resulting in expulsion.
Helmut Marko states that they had to pull the plug early because they saw no improvements from de Vries from his data that they have especially against Tsunoda, who has risen to a respectable level in this third year in the sport.
But the decision has gathered mixed reactions where some from the racing community has come in support of de Vries. The Dutchman was seemingly spotted with his former boss Toto Wolff from Mercedes in Monaco on Wednesday in a restaurant.
Here’s what has been said about de Vries:
Tom Coronel: “Racing is cruel and so are the decisions. In my opinion, it’s way too early to make a decision about a driver when you’re not even halfway the season. He had a good race in Silverstone and made progress throughout the season, even with the slowest car on-track. He’s not far behind from a team mate who’s having his third year with the team. Nyck has won every single race class he participated in: from karting, Formula 2, FE, superb performance in several endurance race cars and so on. I’m 100% sure a lot a F1 drivers don’t have a racing career like Nyck had already. There’s a lot more than F1, but he deserved to have a full season to show your progress.”
Giedo van der Garde: “Never expected it to be over so quickly for Nyck. If you look back at it, the amount of time he was given to get used to the car and the progress he made (slowly but surely) it’s – in my opinion – been too soon. As for Nyck, this hurts like a m*#%{f^]er. I remember when my career ended so quickly, I couldn’t watch a single meter of racing. That’s understandable, but let’s not forget this guy is quick as hell, has proven himself in a lot of categories and has a bright future in motorsport ahead of him. It might be too soon to focus on that, but important to keep in mind. Cheer up and you can be proud of yourself buddy.”
Lucas di Grassi: “When you axe a driver after 10 races it shows the process of making the hiring decision is wrong. Motor racing relies too much on instinct or ‘one lap’ or ‘one race result’ instead of looking the long term norm of a specific driver. So much methodology and data to make the car faster, so little to choose the right race driver.”
Antonio Felix da Costa: “Haven’t publicly spoken about this. Can only imagine how hard it must be to quickly get used to an F1, perform with only a couple days testing. Nyck is getting closer to Tsunoda every weekend, who, let’s not forget, had to have a couple of bad days himself to get to this level.”
Sophia Floersch: “It was never a fair chance. So sorry for Nyck.”
Helmut Marko (to De Telegraaf): “We contracted Nyck because he performed great at Monza last year. We expected him to be at least equal to his team-mate Tsunoda this year, but that was not the case. Actually, he was always three tenths slower than Yuki. We saw no improvement. We had to do something. Why wait, and what do two more races matter if you don’t see any improvement? Nyck is a very nice guy, but the speed just wasn’t there. He is 28, has a lot of experience and has also been able to gain a lot of knowledge as a test driver in multiple Formula 1 cars. You can’t compare him to a young rookie in my opinion.
“At the end of April in Baku, he started the weekend well and I thought he would perform better, but then he crashed again. Unfortunately, he didn’t do one super lap that really amazed us. Ricciardo’s lap times were competitive during the tyre test, on three different tyre sets. If Ricciardo hadn’t had the speed, we would have needed to consider something else. But AlphaTauri is not in a good position right now and is last in the constructors’ standings, so we had to do something to change that. That often happens after a driver change and Ricciardo brings new energy to the team.”
Here’s news on Daniel Ricciardo replacing Nyck de Vries