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Mercedes boss Toto Wolff has speculated as to why Red Bull suddenly cut Nyck de Vries from their sister AlphaTauri team midway through the season.
One of the biggest shocks of the first half of the campaign was when F1 rookie De Vries was jettisoned by AlphaTauri after just 10 races and veteran Daniel Ricciardo was suddenly brought in from the cold to replace the young Dutchman.
While De Vries had underperformed in his first season at motorsport’s highest level – failing to secure a single point and consistently being outpaced by teammate Yuki Tsunoda – his immediate sacking was seen as harsh by many in the sport, with four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel calling it “brutal”.
And, perhaps unsurprisingly given his fierce rivalry with Red Bull and team boss Christian Horner in particular, Wolff claims he falls into this camp.
“Maybe he needed more time. If he had been given the season, who knows?” Wolff told Sky F1. “Maybe he would have been a really good candidate for the Red Bull seat too.”
The Austrian offered his own theory as to why De Vries was cast aside, believing Sergio Perez’s poor form at Red Bull meant Horner and adviser Helmut Marko wanted to evaluate 34-year-old Ricciardo – who has won eight grands prix in his career – as a potential replacement for the Mexican as Max Verstappen’s teammate in the grid’s fastest car next year.
“They wanted, I think, to do some benchmarking with Ricciardo to see if Daniel might be able to take Checo’s [Perez] seat,” said Wolff.
“And once you’ve made that decision, then of course you’ll fall through the cracks.”
Wolff also offered his sympathy to 28-year-old De Vries and revealed that he had met with the Dutchman in the days after his AlphaTauri sacking.
Wolff said: “I’m a fan of his because he’s incredibly intelligent for vehicle development and has always contributed a lot.”
De Vries’ next move in motorsport is still up in the air, although he has been linked with a return to Formula E, where he won the 2020-21 world championship.
His manager Guillaume Le Goff told Formule1.nl: “There is plenty of interest in Nyck. I’ve had quite a few calls in the last week. Endurance, Le Mans, GTs, Formula E, also Formula 1. We’ll see.”
