The first of our annual countdown exploring how RaceFans believe each of the drivers in the 2023 season performed over the year. While influenced by RaceFans’ regular driver ratings, they are not based solely on a driver’s average score over the season.
If there was any such thing as cosmic justice in motorsport, every Formula 2 champion would receive at least one reasonable opportunity to compete in Formula 1.
After all, there is supposedly no greater indicator that a driver is ready for the step into world championship-level competition to race against the best in the world than by winning the direct feeder series to Formula 1. Yet 2019 champion Nyck de Vries – like his successors Felipe Drugovich and Theo Pourchaire – found that even claiming the F2 title would not be enough to cause the great iron gates into Formula 1 to swing open.
Instead, De Vries took his talents to sports car racing and Formula E, where he was crowed the all-electric series’ first ever official world champion as sanctioned by the FIA. Eventually, a sudden chance opportunity to replace Alexander Albon at Williams in Monza in 2022 threw De Vries in the frame for an unexpected AlphaTauri seat at the age of 28 – already putting him firmly in the older half of the field as a rookie.
De Vries may have had only slightly more grand prix experience than fellow rookies Oscar Piastri and Logan Sargeant at the start of the season, but had far more years of racing to his CV than peers. However, despite this far higher experience level, De Vries looked far less comfortable and much more error-prone than Piastri, who he was regularly racing near the back of the field with in the early part of the year.
After a decent enough opening round in Bahrain, he arrived at the unfamiliar Jeddah circuit and lost valuable practice time with a power unit problem on Saturday morning. A spin early in Q1 did not help his confidence and he was eliminated in 18th, but while he made his way up to 14th by the end of the race on Sunday, he admitted he had not been aggressive enough while the field were closed up in the early laps.
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He failed to finish in Melbourne, although that was entirely down to Sargeant taking him out at the final restart. But De Vries only had himself to blame for a woeful weekend in Baku. He crashed out of Friday qualifying, then was eliminated slowest from SQ1 before hitting…
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