Franz Tost says dropping Nyck de Vries was an emotional decision after a good relationship and feedback from the Dutch F1 driver.
There has been opinions galore after the decision to drop de Vries by Red Bull and AlphaTauri after 10 F1 races and replace him with Daniel Ricciardo. Tost joins the pack stating that it was an emotional decision on his part to let go of the Dutchman.
Tost has always said that rookie drivers do need a couple of F1 seasons to settle in. He said the same for de Vries even though he has experience after winning titles in Formula 2 and Formula E, while also competing regularly in endurance competitions.
Tost values de Vries and his feedback while understanding that the car was difficult to drive. The decision, in the end, was from Red Bull even though he was part of the discussion where he couldn’t argue against the lack of results.
“This was also a very emotional decision, because we have a really good relationship with Nyck, I just spoke with him on the telephone last week, and he didn’t have an easy time with us,” said Tost. “First of all, as a rookie – and this is generally for rookies, also for the future, the first half of the season is not so easy because they are racing at many race tracks which they don’t know, like Melbourne, Miami, Saudi Arabia.
“Then they come to Baku, where it’s a Sprint race, that means it’s only FP1 and then it’s already the qualifying. That means, nowadays, if a young driver comes to Formula 1, he really has to be prepared in the best possible way, which for me means at least 5-6,000km of testing, private testing with an old car.
“Like Alpine did it with Piastri, this is the way how to go. Coming back now to Nyck, it was difficult for him, also our car was not so competitive, and if a car is not so good, it’s even more complicated. I expected a much better performance in Austria and in Silverstone because both of these tracks, Nyck knew quite well – but the performance didn’t come up and we decided to change him.
“Also, thinking to the second half of the season where he doesn’t know Singapore, Japan, Mexico, Austin and Qatar, which would not have made it quite easy. Now, with Ricciardo we have an experienced driver in there, which also helps us to develop the car, to find out better where are the deficiencies of the car and hopefully to improve the performance of the car,” summed up Tost.
While talking about a collective decision, Tost stated that there was not much they could have done in assessing him before signing him after his performance in Monza in 2022. “There was no possibility because he didn’t race any more,” he said. “And was at the end decided by Red Bull. And yeah, afterwards, everyone is more clever.
“I think at that time, it was the right decision. Of course we are always sitting together to discuss different drivers. There’s usually advantages and disadvantage. And then we make a common decision,” summed up Tost.
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