Nyck de Vries, who will make his debut as a full-time Formula 1 driver with AlphaTauri this year, says he almost gave up on his dream of reaching the series during his climb through the lower categories – and suffered from the pressure to deliver at times.
Seven years ago a disappointing season in GP3 threatened to thwart De Vries’ attempts to reach F1. Although he eventually secured a seat in Formula 2, he faced further setbacks in his second year in the category when he joined the reigning champions.
De Vries arrives in F1 this season four years after taking the F2 title, having also raced successfully in Formula E, where he won the 2020-21 championship. However it means he faces the unusual situation of making his F1 debut while being older than more than half of the rivals he will go up against in Bahrain next month.
“I’m one of the older guys, so I’ve walked quite a long journey to get here,” he said in an interview for his AlphaTauri team. “I actually grew up with many of the current drivers on the grid. I feel like I’m kind of part of their generation.”
De Vries was originally backed by McLaren, who brought him into car racing following his strong performances in go-karts. “We had a very successful time in karting,” said De Vries. “We won the European Championship and two consecutive world championships [while] signed with McLaren at the time.
“I think the timing was really good because Lewis [Hamilton] just made his debut in Formula 1 and that was obviously a very successful story and therefore a lot of Formula 1 teams were kind of interested in young drivers and scouts at a young age to kind of replicate a similar success story.”
However De Vries’ progress through the junior categories wasn’t entirely smooth, and included three years at the Formula Renault 2.0 level. “The first kind of years in cars were a little bit, I’d say, tougher,” he recalled. “I think they were still good in terms of performance, but because the expectations were so high, I probably could never do it good enough. It took a little bit longer to get up to speed.
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“I think physically I was also quite underdeveloped. I was a late bloomer, so I was 17, but probably my body was 14. But I got going and eventually won Formula Renault, finished third in Formula Renault 3.5, which was at the time the…
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