“Max Is My Big Brother”: F1 Newbie Nyck de Vries Reflects on One Surreal Experience While Showering Praise on Verstappen

Nyck de Vries, who was touted to secure a Williams seat replacing Nicholas Latifi at the end of the 2022 season, took Max Verstappen‘s advice and gave a call to Red Bull Advisor, Helmut Marko. In an unexpected turn of events, Nyck bagged outgoing Pierre Gasly’s AlphaTauri seat. A Mercedes reserve driver is now contracted by the rivals, Red Bull, for their sister team. This development will see both the Dutchmen under the Red Bull Racing umbrella in 2023. However, nationality and contracting teams are not the only commonalities between the drivers.

The two Dutchmen have known each other since the Karting days. In a recent interview with AlphaTauri’s website, de Vries explained, “Max and I have known each other since a very young age, as we grew up karting at a similar time, although we’ve never actually raced against each other.”

Despite having started out together, the two drivers saw a very different trajectory for their careers. Max Verstappen skipped GP2 to join Toro Rosso at the very young age of 17. Incidentally, Nyck had to wait patiently for his dream to be realized at 27, with the same team.

Max Verstappen, now a double world champion, is miles ahead in terms of experience. Nyck de Vries had to take a very different route on his journey to F1. The humble de Vries acknowledged the difference in their journey and expressed his fondness for Verstappen. He said, “We’re obviously from the same country, speak the same language and we just get along. Despite the fact that I’m older, it almost feels like Max is my big brother within the Formula 1 paddock, he’s obviously achieved a lot and has so much experience already.”

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The Dutch duo, however, had never really raced against each other. The new AlphaTauri driver said, “We have a great relationship, the way we grew up in racing, with our fathers being very involved and karting through Europe has been very similar and we have a great respect for each other”

Describing a surreal experience, he said, “The first time we actually raced together was in Monza last year, and we happened to be next to each other on the grid, so that was amazing.”  Monza was the debut race for Nyck, where he took everyone by surprise.

An unexpected F1 debut by Nyck de Vries

It was a dream F1 debut for Nyck de Vries at the Italian Grand Prix. The 27-year-old had been a Mercedes reserve driver for about two years. Despite winning the championships in F2 and Formula E, his chance at F1 had yet not come. But little did he know his dream would come knocking on his doors, unexpectedly, on a Saturday morning.

Alex Albon, down with appendicitis, had to be replaced. De Vries was called in the last minute to fill in for the Thai driver.

On his debut with the British team, De Vries, not only ran a clean race but scored points equaling Albon’s season-best result. This also meant that he had outperformed Williams‘ other full-time driver, Nicholas Latifi. It surely was a difficult feat for de Vries because he had never driven an F1 car for a full race’s length and that too on a full fuel load.

However, his determination, patience, and toil were rewarded. Few can pull off a point-scoring debut. To add to the accolades, he even became Driver of the Day as voted by F1 fans during the race’s duration. Still a reserve driver, he had hoped to impress the teams to secure a seat for 2023.

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The 27-year-old was soon signed by AlphaTauri. He will be racing alongside Yuki Tsunoda for the 2023 season. After having impressed everyone with a spectacular performance on his debut, we have to wait a couple of months to see what he has in store for us as a regular driver on the grid.