Nyck De Vries: Analysing why the Formula E champion is struggling to adapt to life in Formula One.

The start of the 2023 season has been suboptimal for Nyck De Vries, unable to find the same form as his magnificent performance at Monza, scoring P9 on debut standing in for Alex Albon at Williams due to health issues in 2022. Signing for AlphaTauri, a well-established midfield team built up a lot of hype and curiosity for the 28-year-old to see what the 2019 Formula 2 and 20/21 Formula E world champion could do in Formula One. So far, he has struggled to adapt to the fast-paced and intense nature of the sport and his comments at the Spanish GP press conference before the weekend began may have given us a small insight into why that may be, will Red Bull tolerate his level of performance for him to adapt and more importantly, can his season can be salvaged.

The name ‘De Vries’ is no new name in the world of motorsports, Nyck had an incredible junior career which he started in Karting, winning multiple championships most notably the Karting World Championship in 2010 and was soon after snapped up by the McLaren young driver program in the same year. He repeated the feat a year later, winning and retaining the title again in 2011. He then had a successful single-seater career in Formula Renault Eurocup adding another title in 2014 to his already impressive list of championships at the age of 14. In 2016 he entered GP3 with ART Grand Prix, teammates with Charles Leclerc and Alex Albon he adapted quickly and finished sixth in the championship. The following year in 2017 he got promoted to Formula Two with Rapax, he secured a Monte Carlo sprint race win and a range of podiums again adapting very quickly which has been a key skill for Nyck during his career. The following season, now driving for Prema, he finished the season fourth behind champion George Russell, Lando Norris and Alex Albon, missing out on the top three by ten points.

Winning the 2019 Formula Two championship brought the hope of thrusting De Vries into Formula One, but at this stage, his relationship with McLaren had faded, Lando Norris and Carlos Sainz were putting in good results and Nyck was in F2 for his third season which is frowned upon when it comes to being seen as a top talent by teams. There were sadly no Formula One opportunities for 2020.

Opportunities from other disciplines did appear, Nyck was already appearing in the WEC series in 2019 with Team Nederlands and was able to score some podiums, notably at the 6 hours of Silverstone. At the end of 2019, he signed for the Mercedes-Benz EQ Formula E team alongside former McLaren Formula One driver Stoffel Vandoorne, he stayed there for three seasons winning the title in his second year in a dramatic finale in Berlin.

An incredible career and more importantly a career that has so much experience not only in age but also in different categories of racing in very different styles of cars. The real question is why and how is De Vries struggling to adapt to life in Formula One? Even after his performance in Monza? In the Thursday Spanish GP press conference Nyck gave us an honest insight into his struggles after a question from David Croft about his current performance, De Vries said “Formula One is very different to any other championship I have ever raced in, I think the most challenging part is that the midfield is extremely tight and competitive and the margins are just very fine” he then went on to talk about F2 and GP3, talking about their lack of practice sessions and therefore equating to more of a field spread due to less time in the car and with them both being a less detail driven discipline compared to Formula one where you are chasing car setup and balance throughout a whole weekend of sessions.

One quote that stuck out from the press conference was him finishing talking about his time in Formula Two and Three by saying “If you are within 85/90% you kind of put yourself there or thereabouts, whilst in Formula One it's pushed so much towards the limit and driving the setup throughout the whole weekend”. Finding the limit in new machinery is one thing and something that every driver has to find and will struggle with in the beginning, Nyck appeared to adapt instantly in the Williams but in that kind of scenario, any driver in that position will desperately want to do well and achieve a strong results to send out a message, an all or nothing approach and with Williams having a strong car for that weekend it allowed Nyck to nail what he had to do on that day and showed everyone his full potential. Another potential issue is also that switching between teams is not always an easy transition like Daniel Ricciardo to McLaren to give an example and some drivers can find it hard to adapt to a different machine that does not suit their driving style. In Formula two Nyck explained that you are never at 100% in qualifying and you will be within the mix come race day where the same principle is in place, but his stay in Formula E where in races they are never on the limit for the majority of the race due to them lifting off and pulling a paddle behind the steering wheel in braking zones to regenerate energy back into the battery. This extended three-year stay away from an intense on the limit discipline of motorsport is one of the reasons why Nyck is unable to adapt to the fast-paced nature of Formula One at this moment in time. WEC is a series that does require pushing on the limit in qualifying and some parts of the race but due to WEC being an endurance championship you are constantly trying to stick to set delta times to look after tires or lifting and coasting to save fuel to achieve the desired stint lengths.

Nyck De Vries is an incredibly talented driver with a huge CV that has serious pedigree in a multitude of disciplines in the motorsports world, if Red Bull signed him to improve over one year and take it into a second year then I do believe you will see a talented driver in Nyck and one that can be a great asset for the AlphaTauri team and even for a future option at Red Bull racing. In addition at AlphaTauri, he can be a good comparison for other Red Bull junior drivers if they get a chance in the top-tier of motorsport. You don’t win any championship if you are not a top-tier driver and Nyck has proved that on multiple occasions, it seems he needs some more time but in the cutthroat sport that is Formula One, time is something that is never on a driver's side in the world of Formula One.