There’s no doubt that Nyck de Vries is having a tough start to his F1 debut season. With a few clashes and wrecks, he’s finding it difficult at the moment and this has been quite a departure from his stand-in performance in a Williams last year.
It seems Red Bull boss Helmut Marko may have seen enough and reports suggest he’s given Nyck until Monaco to sort out his issues. A second report at the Express suggests that Alpha Tauri boss Franz Tost doesn’t agree with this assessment and says that young drivers need time to develop and that crashing is part of the way they find the limit.
Tost says Yuki Tsunoda is a good example of how young drivers develop over time as the Japanese driver has been doing very well so far this season.
That can certainly be the truth of it but the team also have veteran Daniel Ricciardo in the wings as a reserve driver for either Red Bull or sister team Alpha Tauri and it could be interesting to see if Daniel can turn things around by sitting in for Nyck.
Rumors strengthened with news that Daniel made a visit to the Alpha Tauri shop for a seat fitting. While the timing is convenient for rumor mongering, a least fitting is a standard procedure for a reserve driver. So is this coincidental or is there something else in mind at Alpha Tauri.
Does the team owe it to Nyck to give him more time to develop or should they put Daniel in the car and try to salvage the season with some points? Also, Daniel also struggled in his last two years in F1 so is it a given that he will do much better than Nyck? One would certainly assume he would.
Oh, lord no, not the shoe boy again….
My guess is the manipulative schemers at RBR gave him a seat fitting to create these rumors and pressure seemed-quick-Nick. They seem to like acid tests. I think he’s at the big team to keep Sergio in line. Ricciardo has figured out a lot of ways to get paid in F1 for not driving fast, now he’s taken it to new heights and his job is to not drive at all, in this case just to sit down.
Unlikely as it makes no sense to replace Nick after only a handful of races. They are junior drivers, we have to give them time. Max was putting it in the wall or crashing into everyone in his first couple of years.
Pretty sure that Marko has put the kibosh on it anyway.