Nyck de Vries drove for Williams during FP1 for the Spanish Grand Prix, and the team believes his performance in that shows he is worthy of a place on the Formula 1 grid.
This is another example that shows how many decent young driving talents are missing out on an F1 seat as other drivers occupy seats in top flight that they are unworthy of, either because of their wealthy backgrounds or namesakes.
Nyck de Vries, the reigning Formula E Champion with Mercedes, tested a Williams FW44 during the first practice session of 2022 Spanish Grand Prix, and finished the session faster than team regular Nicholas Latifi, the Canadian being the perfect example of money buying you an F1 seat you are unworthy of.
Williams, Head of Vehicle Performance Dave Robson gave his assessment of the time De Vries spent in the car of Alex Albon.
“His pace was there,” Robson told F1’s official website. “His ability to understand the tyre and do the out-lap correctly, was really impressive.
“And then after that, his feedback post-session was extremely good. He had some very useful comments on the balance of the car, which agrees quite well with what we’ve heard from the two race drivers.
De Vries has what it takes to be a top quality driver
“So, I think in that regard, considering he only gets an hour in the car, I think he did a really good job, and he clearly has what he needs to be an absolute top quality competition driver.
“Yeah, he’s worthy of a place on the grid,” Robson claimed. “I think, but so many people are. I think he took his opportunity well, yesterday and I think he should be you should be pleased and proud of what he did.”
“I think everything he did… was really good,” the Williams engineer added. “He didn’t put a foot wrong. He completed the engineering programme that we needed him to do, which for us was the most important bit.
“But, you know, not only did he not have a huge amount of time in the simulator, we gave him the prime tyre for his first run yesterday, which we knew would be a little bit difficult.
“But at least it gave him the opportunity to do a good number of laps. And then to go straight from that all the way to the qualifying compound is a big ask for anyone and actually, you can see in the lap time he did a very good job,” Robson concluded.