Mercedes offer potential F1 lifeline to sacked Red Bull driver Nyck de Vries

Sam Cooper 2023年7月21日5:15PM

Nyck de Vries in the paddock. Japan October 2022.

Mercedes say Nyck de Vries would be welcome back should he want his former simulator driver job back.

De Vries left Mercedes after three years in 2022 to move onto AlphaTauri and a full-time race seat.

But his stint at the Italian outfit proved to be a lot shorter with the Dutchman sacked shortly after the British Grand Prix after a string of poor performances.

Following radio silence, De Vries emerged shortly before F1 headed to Budapest to announce on his

Instagram that he was taking some time off over the summer break before contemplating his next move.

“A short note from me… After recent events, I decided to take some time for myself away from social media, which I will continue to do,” De Vries said.

“I would like to thank Red Bull and Scuderia AlphaTauri for the opportunity to live my dream. Of course it hurts that the F1 chance I dreamed of for so long ended prematurely. But life is not a destination, it’s a journey, and sometimes you have to take the hard road to get where you want to be.

I am grateful for our privileged lives, proud of our journey and my family. This is just another experience, we move on and look forward to the next chapter.”

Securing another F1 seat looks a tough ask but Mercedes are willing to give him his old job back should he want it.

“I think Nyck will be looking for more than just to become a simulator driver,” Trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin told the media. “So he’ll want to be doing racing.

PlanetF1.com建议

F1 penalty points: One driver has points added and takes unwanted P1 from Pierre Gasly

The seven drivers out of contract at the end of the F1 2023 season

“I’ve only spoken to him by text and he said he’ll let me know how his plans are coming on. He was certainly very useful for us in that role and we’d be welcome to get him back in that role but I suspect that his focus will be on finding race seats.

“If it’s not in Formula 1, it will be in some other big and competitive series. He is clearly very talented, F2 champion Formula E champion which is a very difficult series to win. And he’ll be looking to get into a winning seat again.”

Shortly after his AlphaTauri departure, De Vries was spotted at a Monaco cafe with Toto Wolff, making many speculate that they were discussing a potential return.

Mick Schumacher is currently the reserve driver for Mercedes and has been doing plenty of sim work in 2023.