Nyck de Vries has spoken publicly for the first time since being axed by AlphaTauri, saying losing his Formula 1 seat early “hurts”.
De Vries was drafted in by AlphaTauri for this season after an impressive performance at last year’s Italian Grand Prix when he stood in for Williams driver Alex Albon.
But after a short 10-race stint, the Faenza-based team chose to cast him aside in favour of brining back Daniel Ricciardo as his replacement from Hungary onwards.
De Vries failed to score a point during his brief spell at AlphaTauri and was consistently outperformed by team-mate Yuki Tsuonda, only finishing ahead of him in two races.
One week after losing his drive, De Vries took to social media to break his silence, expressing the disappointment of seeing his stint at AlphaTauri cut short.
In a statement posted on Instagram, De Vries wrote: “A short note from me… After recent events, I decided to take some time for myself away from social media, which I will continue to do.
“I would like to thank Red Bull and Scuderia AlphaTauri for the opportunity to live my dream. Of course, it hurts that the F1 chance I dreamed of for so long ended prematurely.
“But life is not a destination, it’s a journey, and sometimes you have to take the hard road to get where you want to be.
“I am grateful for our privileged lives, proud of our journey and my family. This is just another experience; we move on and look forward to the next chapter.
“Thank you to everyone for your kind and encouraging messages in the past week. It’s been heart-warming to feel your support.”
Red Bull boss Christian Horner admitted De Vries was viewed as a “stopgap” given the limited options to promote from its junior programme, but still expected the Dutchman to perform despite his lack of F1 experience.
“Look, Nyck is a very capable driver, a Formula E champion, a Formula 2 champion, he’s obviously got a lot of experience, he’s not a young driver as such from an age perspective,” said Horner on the F1 Nation podcast.
“And I just didn’t see how it fitted within the junior programme. It was almost a stopgap.
“There was a high expectation on him, because while inexperienced in Formula 1 he is obviously a very experienced driver.
“And I think there was a general feeling that Nyck wasn’t quite hitting the mark.”
