Nyck de Vries, “My biggest mistake”

It all starts in 2022 for Nyck de Vries. After winning the F2 championship (formerly GP2) in 2019, then the Formula E championship in 2021, the Dutch driver becomes reserve driver at Mercedes for the 2022 season.
De Vries gets his chance at the Monza Grand Prix, Italy, while Alexander Albon suffers from appendicitis and has to withdraw. The Mercedes reserve driver therefore finds himself in the Williams during qualifying and the race.
During these two sessions, he outperformed his provisional teammate, Nicholas Latifi, first during qualifying, then in the race, where he finished in an impressive 9th place. He thus won two points for his very first race in Formula 1.
Thanks to this remarkable performance, he attracted the attention of several teams for the following season. It was finally with AlphaTauri, Red Bull's junior team, that he officially made his debut as a Formula 1 driver.

“My biggest mistake”

However, Nyck de Vries never managed to confirm his performance at Monza. He did no better than a modest 12th place before being replaced by Daniel Ricciardo after only 10 races.
At the time, Helmut Marko, Red Bull's director of young drivers, revealed that Red Bull team principal Christian Horner had expressed serious doubts about De Vries.
Recently, Marko spoke in the Italian press Autosprint. He admitted that recruiting De Vries was “undeniably” a mistake, criticizing performances that fell short of expectations: “My biggest mistake? It was undeniably Nyck de Vries. He did very well on his debut with Williams at Monza. He also had an incredible resume. He was Formula 2 champion and Formula E champion. But for us the clock showed that Nyck de Vries was the wrong choice. »

The Dutch driver has since returned to Formula E while racing in endurance as he approaches his 30th birthday. Meanwhile, at Red Bull, we decided to return to the philosophy of young drivers, with Liam Lawson and Isack Hadjar (aged 21 and 20 respectively).

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