F1 News: Red Bull Chastised After Abrupt Nyck De Vries Firing
Red Bull's decision to fire Nyck de Vries from AlphaTauri only halfway through the 2023 F1 season has sparked criticism from several drivers as well as fans. The Dutch driver was terminated after just 10 races of his F1 rookie season, with Daniel Ricciardo returning to F1 as a surprise replacement.
However, the dismissal hasn't been well-received among some of de Vries' compatriots. Dutch racing driver Tom Coronel commented on the situation:
“Racing is cruel and so are the decisions.
“In my opinion, it’s way too early to make a decision about a driver when you’re not even halfway the season.
“He had a good race in Silverstone and made progress throughout the season, even with the slowest car on-track. He’s not far behind from a team mate who’s having his third year with the team.
“Nyck has won every single race class he participated in: from karting, Formula 2, FE, superb performance in several endurance race cars and so on. I’m 100% sure a lot a F1 drivers don’t have a racing career like Nyck had already.
“There’s a lot more than F1, but [he] deserved to have a full season to show your progress.”
Giedo van der Garde, another Dutch driver and a former Caterham F1 racer, shared Coronel's sentiment. He commented:
“Never expected it to be over so quickly for Nyck.
“If you look back at it, the amount of time he was given to get used to the car and the progress he made (slowly but surely) it’s – in my opinion – been too soon.
“As for Nyck, this hurts like a m*#%{f^]er.
“I remember when my career ended so quickly, I couldn’t watch a single metre of racing. That’s understandable, but let’s not forget this guy is quick as hell, has proven himself in a lot of categories and has a bright future in motorsport ahead of him.
“It might be too soon to focus on that, but important to keep in mind. Cheer up and you can be proud of yourself buddy.”
Lucas di Grassi and Antonio Felix da Costa, two of de Vries' former Formula E competitors, also entered the discussion. Di Grassi criticized the recruitment process, while da Costa empathized with de Vries, acknowledging the challenges of quickly acclimating to F1 performance.
Di Grassi wrote:
“When you axe a driver after 10 races it shows the process of making the hiring decision is wrong.
“Motor racing relies too much on instinct or ‘one lap’ or ‘one race result’ instead of looking the long term norm of a specific driver.
“So much methodology and data to make the car faster, so little to choose the right race driver.”
Da Costa also commented:
“Can only imagine how hard it must be to quickly get used to an F1, perform with only a couple days testing.
“Nyck is getting closer to [Yuki] Tsunoda every weekend, who, let’s not forget, had to have a couple of bad days himself to get to this level."
Another fan commented:
"The lack of coverage/mention about Nyck De Vries being dropped tells us everything we need to know about how much the Red Bull organisation wanted Nyck De Vries in the first place Frank Tost’s statement was basically 'thanks, bye, good luck'"
"Nyck doesn't deserve to be treated like this by Red Bull. I got so emotional only by seeing this Video #NyckDeVries deserves better."
"It's good for @F1 to have @danielricciardo back in a race seat, but I feel sorry for @nyckdevries. Even by Red Bull standards 10 weekends was not much of an opportunity, with a lot of new and tricky tracks, two sprints and a difficult car thrown in. He deserved more."