Nyck De Vries Reflects On Challenging F1 Start: "You Can't Force Relationships"

Nyck de Vries isn't just new to AlphaTauri, but he's almost completely new to Formula 1. And with such a huge change in his career, he's feeling the effort of building the new relationships needed within the sport and his new team to succeed. Fortunately, he has only good things to say about his new 2023 family.

De Vries has a very successful racing history, with him not only becoming a Formula 2 champion with ART, but also becoming a Formula E champion with Mercedes.

But now, he's been faced with a new challenge of finding what potential the team's new car may have and moving AlphaTauri up to the middle of the pack. To do this, he needs a good relationship with teammate Yuki Tsunoda, who is already well-integrated into the team.

"Well, you can’t force relationships," de Vries said. "That always takes a bit of time but I’ve been very warmly welcomed.

"It seemed like everyone was very excited about my arrival and we certainly did everything we could to integrate me as quickly as possible.

"I spent time with different engineering departments, with different people within the team, and we’ve also done a little bit more specific work on preferences, likings, on all sorts of things."

The Dutch driver admits that there are still gaps for improvement, but these will undoubtedly be sealed as the season begins and the pressure is on.

"I feel like we did a good job of using the time to welcome and integrate me into the team but at the same time, we have started to look at gaps where there is room for improvement which we needed to highlight.

"We’ve used our time well in terms of the physical aspect and we’ve been pushing really hard.

"I’m just basically enjoying the ride and I’m very excited to start our season."

There's no doubt that de Vries is an excellent addition to the AlphaTauri team, and we're excited to see how he adapts to this new challenge.

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