Is Nyck de Vries’ Formula 1 career slowly gaining momentum? After the Dutchman came under public pressure after a weak start to the season, he recently achieved his best result of the season so far with twelfth place at the Monaco Grand Prix.
In Spain he followed up with a good fourth place in the first practice session. “That’s what we expected from him,” said Red Bulls Helmut Marko on “Sky”, satisfied with the recent results of the former Formula 2 and Formula E champion.
And AlphaTauri team boss Franz Tost also attests de Vries “a very good performance” in Barcelona and emphasizes: “Nyck also did a very good job in Monaco and he is becoming more and more familiar with the car and the team.”
“You always feel a certain pressure in Formula 1, but he knew for himself that the start of the season didn’t go as expected. But that wasn’t just his fault,” Tost de Vries defends and explains that the car is at the beginning of the year simply “not very good”.
Tost: That’s why it’s difficult for young drivers today
The Austrian also explains that it is “very difficult” for Formula 1 rookies these days. “They don’t even know some of the routes. Melbourne, for example, or Saudi Arabia or Miami,” recalls the AlphaTauri team boss.
At the weekend in Baku there was only one training session because of the sprint format. “It’s not easy for the young drivers,” he emphasizes and mentions another factor: “The midfield is very close together, the difference is only hundredths of a second.”
“And to do well, you really have to bring everything together,” says Tost, who believes that de Vries is slowly but surely finding his way. “I’m pretty optimistic about the future,” the 67-year-old clarifies.
However, the second practice session on Friday in Barcelona was a minor setback, because de Vries only ended up in P16 and was unable to confirm his good FT1 result. “It was a decent day for us,” he said.
Why AlphaTauri slipped backwards in FT2
“I think we got off to a pretty good start. However, we didn’t quite get everything together in FT2,” he says, and chief engineer Claudio Balestri explains: “We didn’t manage a competitive lap time on the soft tires on the first lap.”
Teammate Yuki Tsunoda even finished 17th, one position behind de Vries. “We have to look at that,” said Balestri. After all, the updates that AlphaTauri brought to Barcelona seem to deliver additional performance.
“It seems that they work,” says team boss Tost, drawing a first positive conclusion, even if he wants to wait for qualifying first. There it will be seen whether de Vries will make it into Q3 for the first time this year.
Team-mate Tsunoda did that twice in Baku and most recently in Monaco.