Lewis Hamilton’s Fame Collided With Nyck de Vries’ Fate to Kickstart the Rookie’s F1 Journey: “The Timing Was Really Good”

The 2023 Formula One season is upon us, and we have three more rookies lined up for the season. One of them had a surprisingly impressive debut in 2022 when he drove for Williams as a replacement driver in place of Alex Albon. And it was none other than Formula E champion, Nyck de Vries, who scored points in his first-ever race and that too in a backmarker. This impressed the Red Bull group, which brought him in to replace the departing Pierre Gasly at AlphaTauri.

But other than his time at Williams, the Dutchman had a good connection with Mercedes, as he served as their reserve driver during the last season. The driver also got his hands on the steering wheel when he drove Lewis Hamilton’s W13 during the first practice session at the French GP. However, his connection with the Briton goes a long way back, to the time when he had just won two consecutive World Karting Championships in 2010 and 2011.

During the podcast posted by AlphaTauri, de Vries talked about how he got enrolled in McLaren’s young driver program from January 2010 until May 2019. As per his statement, Lewis Hamilton’s fame and championships played a huge role in his recruitment with the papaya team. He said, “Signed with McLaren at the time I think the timing was really good because Lewis just made his debut in Formula One and that was obviously a very successful story.”

“And therefore a lot of Formula One teams were kind of interested in Young Drivers and to scout at a young age to kind of replicate a similar success story. So at that time we were very successful in karting and um yeah through our success we’re we were touch with different management companies Formula One teams and we ended up signing with McLaren and they kind of um yeah basically been with me for majority of my career up until a later point in 2017-18.”

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Nyck will now finally race the full season alongside Lewis, whose actions in a different way complemented Nyck’s hard work.

Nyck de Vries is cautious with this characteristic

The Dutchman has been brought in with a lot of belief, hoping to change the fortunes at AlphaTauri after a rather difficult season. His P9 performance at Monza had Helmut Marko luring him away from Mercedes. But what allows Nyck to perform well, given his exceptional past record in racing? It’s perfection, which he believes is both a boon and a bane for him.

As per PlanetF1, he said, “My commitment, determination but also my perfectionism is a great asset and a strength. But equally a weakness. When you go too far, you lose focus and you get lost in the detail and that’s when you are unable to focus.”

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As a result, Red Bull would be unconcerned about the driver’s commitment. And perfection is something that the team would be looking for, anyway. Moreover, Franz Tost, team principal for AlphaTauri, has got enough experience in his portfolio to help the driver deal with any sort of issue.