AlphaTauri team boss Franz Tost believes that a return to more familiar circuits on the 2023 Formula 1 calendar for Nyck de Vries will help him rebound from a tough start to his debut season.
De Vries was handed his full-time F1 debut this year after impressing Red Bull Motorsport Advisor Helmut Marko with his starring deputy performance for Williams at the 2022 Italian Grand Prix.
However, the Dutchman has failed to scale the same heights during his rookie campaign with AlphaTauri, being regularly outpaced by team-mate Yuki Tsunoda and getting caught up in various incidents.
But amid intense speculation over his future, de Vries produced a cleaner Monaco weekend last time out to qualify and finish Sunday’s race in a respectable 12th place.
Having ended both Friday sessions in Barcelona ahead of Tsunoda – including wounding up fourth in FP1 – Tost is confident de Vries will continue to make steady improvements as F1 heads to more venues he is accustomed to.
“Nyck did also a very good job in Monaco, and you know, he is getting more and more familiar with the car, with the team and, as I always say, nowadays, if rookies come into Formula 1, it’s really difficult for them to learn everything so fast – because if you look at the first races, some of the tracks, they even don’t know,” Tost explained.
“Melbourne, for example, or Saudi Arabia, or Miami – and then you have a Sprint race like in Baku with qualifying immediately after the first free practice – and that’s not easy for the young drivers.”
Tost also asserts that de Vries’ shaky start to the season has appeared worse by how compact the F1 field has been in 2023.
That trend looks set to be continuing this weekend, with less than a second separating Max Verstappen at the top of the timesheets in FP2 from Tsunoda in P17.
“The midfield is very close together, it’s just hundredths of seconds difference and to perform well, you really have to get everything together, and I must say that Nyck did a really good job in Monaco and also this morning in the FP1 session,” Tost added. He showed a very good performance.”
While Marko expressed before Monaco that de Vries was on a “yellow card” regarding the security of his seat, the AlphaTauri racer countered by claiming the pressure in F1 is no different to other racing categories.
Tost, who will step down from his role at the end of this season after 18 years, reckons that de Vries is beginning to adapt to the demands of being an F1 driver now he has overcome several early difficulties.
“In Formula 1, you always feel a pressure, but he knew by himself that the start of the season was not as expected,” the Austrian acknowledged.
“But this is not only his fault, as I explained some reasons beforehand. Also, the car was not very good and if you have a car which is not performing so well, having to learn new tracks, then life is really difficult, and I must say that now everything is getting together and I’m quite optimistic for the future.”
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