Dutch pundit slams ‘way too early’ Red Bull call to sack Nyck de Vries

Dutch racer Tom Coronel believes Red Bull have been very hasty to sever ties with an ever-improving Nyck de Vries.

Shortly after reports began emerging on the day of Daniel Riccardo’s Red Bull Silverstone tyre test that he was to be sent to AlphaTauri in the place of under-pressure De Vries, confirmation from the teams indeed arrived.

Ricciardo, effective as of the next round in Hungary, joins AlphaTauri on loan for the remainder of the F1 2023 campaign, while De Vries is left without a place in Formula 1.

Tom Coronel hits out at Red Bull’s Nyck de Vries decision

De Vries joined the grid full-time for F1 2023 carrying plenty of momentum and expectation, the former Formula E and GP2 champion having impressed for Williams in his one-off outing at the 2022 Italian Grand Prix in place of Alex Albon.

Said momentum quickly dried up though, with his struggles to match the performances of team-mate Yuki Tsunoda, plus an unhealthy collection of rookie mistakes convincing Red Bull that a change was needed at their sister team.

Coronel though argues that De Vries delivered a strong performance in the underwhelming AT04 at Silverstone and was moving closer to the level of Tsunoda who is in his third F1 season, and so cannot understand the choice Red Bull made.

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“Racing is cruel and so are the decisions,” Coronel wrote on social media. “In my opinion, it’s way too early to make a decision about a driver when you’re not even halfway [through] the season.

“He had a good race in Silverstone and made progress throughout the season, even with the slowest car on track. He’s not far behind from a team-mate who’s having his 3rd year with the team.

“Nyck has won every single race class he participated in: from karting, Formula 2, Formula E, superb performance in several endurance race cars and so on.

“I’m 100 per cent sure a lot a F1 drivers don’t have a racing career like Nyck had already. There’s a lot more than Formula 1, but you deserved to have a full season to show your progress.

“It’s totally understandable you don’t want to do anything with racing at the moment, but I can’t wait to see you back on track buddy.”

De Vries was one of only two drivers to have failed to score a point in the opening 10 rounds of F1 2023, the other being Williams rookie Logan Sargeant.

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