Nyck de Vries (NLD) AlphaTauri. 02.07.2023. Formula 1 World Championship, Rd 10, Austrian Grand Prix, Spielberg, Austria, Race Day.
Nyck de Vries has made his first comments via social media following his departure from Scuderia AlphaTauri after just 10 Grands Prix.
De Vries released a statement via his Instagram page – addressing his dismissal from the AlphaTauri squad, news of which came to pass last week.
The Dutchman opened his written statement with: “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.”
De Vries then continued, expressing his thanks to the Red Bull Racing and Scuderia AlphaTauri organisations, ” I would like to thank Red Bull and Scuderia AlphaTauri for the opportunity to live my dream,” he said.
“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.”
De Vries landed the AlphaTauri seat after an impressive one-off performance at Monza last year, where he took the Williams’ seat of the then-appendicitis-suffering Alex Albon, and finished ninth in his debut Grand Prix. However, in 2023, De Vries ultimately failed to yield a points finish and the Red Bull Racing hierarchy deemed it fit to dismiss him two races ahead of the summer break.
Prior to his one-off appearance for Williams, De Vries had achieved World Championship success in both Formula E and Formula 2 and in his statement today, recognised the journey he has been on has ultimately been a positive one.
“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,” he said.
De Vries ended his statement by thanking the people who have reached out to offer him support and to address some rumours about alleged comments he had made to the press regarding his situation.
“Thank you to everyone for your kind and encouraging messages in the past week. It’s been heart-warming to feel your support,” he said.
“I received some interesting articles about things I’ve said in the last week. For clarity, I haven’t spoken to any media and for the time being I’ll enjoy some me time. Wishing you all a nice summer.”
Whilst De Vries enjoys a summer to reflect and regroup, AlphaTauri will be looking ahead to this weekend’s Hungarian Grand Prix and no doubt the higher-ups at Red Bull will be assessing the performance of De Vries’ replacement Ricciardo.
Keyword: De Vries breaks silence after AlphaTauri F1 departure