Despite the recent sacking of AlphaTauri rookie Nyck de Vries, Red Bull advisor Dr. Helmut Marko still believes that De Vries has a promising future in racing.
Perhaps, however, not in Formula 1.
In an interview with Dutch outlet De Telegraaf, Marko explained the reasoning behind the unexpected decision to replace De Vries with current reserve driver Daniel Ricciardo for the upcoming Hungarian Grand Prix, instead of waiting until the summer break.
“We had to take action,” stated Marko. “Why should we wait? And what’s the point of keeping him for two more races when we don’t see any improvements? Nyck is a really nice guy, but his speed just wasn’t there.”
Marko revealed that the organization closely monitored De Vries, hoping to see improvements from the 28-year-old driver, but unfortunately, improvement never came. While De Vries achieved his best finish of the year, a P12 at the Monaco Grand Prix, the performance didn’t carry over to subsequent races, and his overall season progress was lacking.
“In April in Baku, he started the weekend well and I expected him to perform better, but then he crashed again,” added Marko. “Unfortunately, he hasn’t impressed us with a single lap.”
Marko countered the notion that De Vries should be evaluated as a rookie, citing his age and extensive experience in various Formula 1 cars as a test driver. According to Marko, De Vries cannot be compared to a young rookie.
“Nyck was contracted because of his excellent performance in Monza last year. We expected him to at least match his teammate Yuki Tsunoda’s performance, but that wasn’t the case,” added the Red Bull advisor. “He was continuously three tenths of a second too slow, and there was no improvement.”
This decision to replace De Vries with Ricciardo also serves as an opportunity to assess Tsunoda’s progress as a driver. Tsunoda has proven to be more successful than De Vries this season, out-qualifying him in seven of the ten races and scoring the only points for the team. However, whether this reflects Tsunoda’s growth or De Vries’ struggles remains to be seen.
Marko also addressed the switch to Ricciardo, which he had dismissed previously. He pointed to Ricciardo’s impressive test session at Silverstone this week as a determining factor.
“His lap times were competitive, on three different compounds,” Marko explained. “If Ricciardo wasn’t quick enough, we would have had to consider other options. But since AlphaTauri is last in the constructor standings, we needed to bring about a change. Ricciardo brings new energy to the team.”
Despite speculations that the change was made to exert pressure on Sergio Pérez, Marko dismissed this idea. Pérez currently holds the second position in the Drivers’ standings but has struggled in qualifying since the Miami Grand Prix in May.
Regarding De Vries, Marko believes that the former driver still has a future in racing, although not necessarily in F1.
“It’s going to be difficult, but at the same time, I think he saw this coming,” said Marko. “I believe he can have a great career in endurance racing.”
