Former F1 driver Giedo van der Garde believes Nyck de Vries is under “mega pressure” at Red Bull, and Helmut Marko played his part.
De Vries arrived at AlphaTauri last season after impressing on a substitute appearance for Williams at Monza in 2022, scoring points on debut and doing enough to put him on the grid.
However, he was replaced by Daniel Ricciardo after 10 races, with the former F2 and Formula E champion set to lead the AlphaTauri team in his rookie season.
The arrival of De Vries, who has already won championships in other senior series along with long-standing reserve duties in F1, meant that there were perhaps more expectations on him than on other rookies, coming to the sport at the age of 28.
After his sacking mid-season, Red Bull motorsport advisor Marko explained as much to German media – telling Motorsport-Total: “What’s brutal about it when the performance isn’t right?
“We chose De Vries because there was a stalemate. There has been no progress and it hasn’t lived up to expectations. It just didn’t fit.
“We gave it a chance and there are only 20 Formula 1 drivers. Not everyone can have one.
Van der Garde, De Vries’ former team-mate at Racing Team Nederland in the World Endurance Championship, claimed that replacing him with Ricciardo turned out to be a wise decision “on paper”, but that doesn’t tell the whole story.
With the pressure put on him by Marko, he feels that if he had had more time and space to grow, Marko and De Vries could feel comfortable and have a more fruitful relationship together.
“It’s a complicated question,” Van der Garde told Dutch publication RacingNews365 when asked if Ricciardo had reached an agreement with Red Bull replacing De Vries.
“Purely on paper, then you will say yes. But that is not entirely fair. After all, don’t forget that the AlphaTauri was completely jerky at the beginning of the season and Yuki Tsunoda couldn’t handle it either.
“Nyck is struggling and under huge pressure after just a few races. We know how difficult it is when Helmut Marko shouts every weekend that he has to be better, that he has to be faster, that he has to be ahead of Tsunoda, because you are destined to be the leader of the team. And then, at some point, you fall apart.
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“Of course, it’s not general to think that when you’re new to Formula 1 you can attract a team like that in one fell swoop.
“It takes between six months and three quarters of a year. But after that race at Williams everyone thought I would show it, but I didn’t. “
“It is therefore incredibly unfortunate that he was not given more time.
“He’s also a guy who wants a little more time to show who he really is and I know how smart he really is and, above all, how committed he is. “
Elaborating on the subject, when asked if the Dutchman would have been able to contribute to the team’s overall problems in the same way that Ricciardo and Liam Lawson did when AlphaTauri’s functionality improved, Van der Garde replied: “I think so, yes. “.
“At that point I would have been faster and Helmut Marko would also have been a bit calmer and more comfortable, because there were some problems on the scoreboard anyway.
“And when the team is more relaxed, you automatically start to perform better. You’re one with the car. “
“So I think what the guys showed, Nyck may have shown as well. “
De Vries will return to Formula E next season with Mahindra, combining that by driving for Toyota in the Hypercar elegance of the World Endurance Championship.
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