The F1 driver already under threat after torrid start to F1 2023
The Azerbaijan Grand Prix was a torrid weekend for AlphaTauri driver Nyck de Vries. Is he already under pressure to keep his seat after just four races?
De Vries’ starring drive to ninth-place on his F1 debut feels like a million miles away on the back of a shambolic race weekend in Baku.
He was the cause of the early Safety Car following a clumsy clout of the wall at Turn 5 before ending up in the wall at the following corner.
It capped off a poor weekend for de Vries, who had pushed teammate Yuki Tsunoda in the wall on the opening lap of Saturday’s sprint.
While de Vries’ performance in the opening round of Bahrain can be excused, given AlphaTauri’s lack of outright pace, the Italian’s team recent upgrades have clearly worked, allowing Tsunoda to score points in the last two races.
While that doesn’t tell the whole story given Tsunoda has been arguably F1’s surprise package - positively-speaking - this season - the AlphaTauri car is certainly not the slowest on the field.
De Vries did show a hint of pace in first practice in Baku, setting the sixth-fastest time of the session.
But his good work was soon undone by a shunt in qualifying.
Put that alongside an incident with Tsunoda, then a race-ending incident on Sunday, it was a poor weekend overall.
“[It was] fully my mistake, my responsibility, silly and unnecessary and that is all I can say about it,” de Vries said of his crash in Sunday’s race.
“All I can do now is move on and look at the next... thankfully there is another race next weekend and we will have to look ahead to what's coming.
“It is kind of an awkward corner because the wall comes towards you and I was just a bit too close. It is a mistake, fully on me, nobody else to blame and I made it.”
De Vries has not lived up to expectations with many tipping the 28-year-old to be the team’s leader given Tsunoda’s fiery nature and less experience.
Given the ruthlessness of the Red Bull driver programme, he’s fully aware that he’ll have to turn it around quickly.
“There is positivity to take away from certain moments and I think we have shown, since Jeddah, speed at given moments but for a lot of reasons and circumstances, we haven't really been able to turn it into a concrete result,” he added.
“That is very tough to swallow, hard, but the only way to move forward is to continue to look ahead and just follow the process.
“I personally believe things will turn around.”
De Vries wasn’t Red Bull’s first choice as Pierre Gasly’s replacement for F1 2023 - IndyCar star Colton Herta was.
The Dutchman was ultimately the default choice given the lack of alternatives available on the market, plus Red Bull’s plethora of junior talent haven’t quite lived up to expectations in Formula 2.
No doubt de Vries was impressive in his one-off drive for Williams, combined with his respectable CV of winning the F2 and Formula E titles - he has pedigree and at some point, deserved an opportunity in F1.
However, de Vries isn’t one of Red Bull’s own nor is he a young prospect that has a significant scope in the future to improve to a point he could race for the senior team.
It’s reminiscent of Brendon Hartley’s stint with Toro Rosso in 2018.
An incredibly talented sportscar driver, Hartley was drafted into Red Bull’s junior team as they had run out of options in a similar scenario to what had happened with de Vries.
Admittedly, de Vries deserves time - we are only four races in the season after all - but his opening four races have been incredibly disappointing.
Liam Lawson’s impressive start to life in Japanese single-seater series Super Formula would have caught the eye of Helmut Marko.
Lawson finished third in last year’s F2 championship, one place ahead of Williams driver Logan Sargeant, who has performed above expectations so far alongside Alex Albon.
If de Vries continues to struggle, while Lawson excels, Helmut Marko will surely consider a change even as early as the summer break.
