F1 Rumour: Red Bull Advisor Delivers Ultimatum To Nyck de Vries After Poor Season Start
Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko has reportedly fired an ultimatum to AlphaTauri driver Nyck de Vries after his poor start to the 2023 season.
The Dutch driver made his F1 debut at the 2022 Italian Grand Prix when he had to step in last minute for Alex Albon in the Williams. De Vries made his mark after taking in two points on his first-ever race.
De Vries was a hot topic after that with a lot of speculation over where he would be signed, with a permanent F1 seat looking inevitable. It was later confirmed that AlphaTauri had signed the Formula E champion as a replacement for Pierre Gasly who was making a move to Alpine.
Despite this, de Vries has struggled to bring out the performance of the AlphaTauri in 2023. The Dutchman's best performance of the year so far is fourteenth place in both Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. He unfortunately had to retire from both the Australian and Azerbaijan Grand Prix before coming in eighteenth position in Miami. As a result, de Vries is currently sat in twentieth place in the drivers' standings.
Now, according to Motorsport.com, Marko has handed de Vries an ultimatum stating that if he does not dramatically improve his performance over the next three races, he will lose his seat on the team. On top of this, it is indicated that his replacement would be Daniel Ricciardo who is keen to make his F1 return whilst he has taken a year out being Red Bull's third driver.
The pressure has been on the AlphaTauri drivers since the start of the season. Marko has been very open with his high expectations and has been clear the Italian team are far from meeting those expectations at the moment.