Nick de Vries was only able to complete ten races for AlphaTauri, after which he was fired from the team due to lack of results. AlphaTauri boss Franz Tost admitted that the Dutch driver was not ready to compete in Formula 1.
“I really feel for Nick,” the Hungarian edition of Formula.hu quoted Franz Tost. “Believe me, it was a very, very difficult decision because Nick is a fantastic person. He won the Formula 2 title and became Formula E world champion.
I must say that Formula 1 has changed dramatically in recent years. This means that when a young driver enters Formula 1, he must be prepared very professionally.
What I mean? Before a driver enters Formula 1, he has to complete about 5,000 kilometers of private tests. At the beginning of the season we organized several tests for Nick, but they were not enough.
At the beginning of the year, Nick had to perform on many songs he didn’t know – in Saudi Arabia, in Miami, in Melbourne. In Baku, the weekend will be run in a sprint format and he had only one practice session to prepare for qualifying. In such conditions it is very difficult for a debutant to show a good result. The competition in Formula 1 is now very high and there is not a single driver in the championship that does not deserve his place.
When making a decision [об увольнении де Вриза] we have taken into account what awaits the team in the second half of the season. Nick doesn’t know many of the tracks we’ll be riding on after the summer break, which is a very serious shortcoming. Daniel Riccardo knows all these tracks, so we decided to invite him.”
Source: F1 News
I am Christopher Clyde, an experienced journalist and content writer with a passion for sports. I have been writing about Formula 1 news for the past five years and am currently employed as an author at athletistic.com, one of the top sports websites in the US.
