Toto Wolff speculates why Red Bull decided to ditch Nyck de Vries
Toto Wolff has pondered whether Nyck de Vries would’ve emerged as a “really good candidate” for the second Red Bull seat if only the team had given him more time.
De Vries joined AlphaTauri at the start of this year’s championship but 10 races into the season found himself unemployed, axed in favour of a comeback for Daniel Ricciardo.
Called “brutal” by many including former Red Bull World Champion Sebastian Vettel, de Vries is now trying to figure out what comes next in his motor racing career.
‘Maybe Nyck de Vries would have been a really good candidate for Red Bull’
Wolff wonders if that could’ve been a Red Bull seat had the team kept faith and given him more time to adapt.
“Maybe he needed more time. If he had been given the season, who knows?” Wolff told Sky F1.
“Maybe he would have been a really good candidate for the Red Bull seat too.”
Wolff reckons de Vries ultimately paid the price for Sergio Perez’s poor form as he suspects Red Bull wanted to evaluate eight-time grand prix winner Ricciardo as a potential replacement for the Mexican driver.
“They wanted, I think, to do some benchmarking with Ricciardo to see if Daniel might be able to take Checo’s seat,” he speculated.
“And once you’ve made that decision, then of course you’ll fall through the cracks.”
Revealing he feels sorry for the Dutchman, Wolff having met with him in the days after his departure from AlphaTauri, the Austrian added: “I’m a fan of his, because he’s incredibly intelligent for vehicle development and has always contributed a lot.”
Wolff, however, doesn’t have many if any options for de Vries given Mercedes no longer compete in Formula E and their Formula 1 seats, including the reserve driver role, are all taken.
So while stating he will “continue to support de Vries with Mercedes as much as we can”, he admits “everything is closed”.
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28-year-old de Vriesfailed to score a pointfor AlphaTauri with his best result P12 in the Monaco Grand Prix.
The driver has yet to announce his future plans aside from driving a racing car at Assen during the JACK’s Racing Day weekend on 12 and 13 August.
He is beinglinked to a return to Formula Ewith his manager Guillaume Le Goff telling Formule1.nl: “There is plenty of interest in Nyck. I’ve had quite a few calls in the last week.
“Endurance, Le Mans, GTs, Formula E, also Formula 1. We’ll see.”
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