Mercedes Wants the Driver Red Bull Rejected After Poor Performance

In a shocking turn of events, Mercedes wants former reserve driver Nyck de Vries back at Brackley. This comes despite the fact that the Dutch driver was shown the exit door at AlphaTauri recently. AlphaTauri’s parent team, Red Bull, who are also their decision makers, decided to bring back former star Daniel Ricciardo in his place.

Before making his switch to the Red Bull family in 2023, de Vries had been involved in the Mercedes program for a long time. He even spent a significant amount of time as the team’s reserve driver. Because of his ties to the Silver Arrows, people expected his F1 career to kickstart at a Mercedes customer team such as Williams. Regardless, de Vries chose to switch camps to join Red Bull by replacing Pierre Gasly at AlphaTauri.

The 28-year-old driver’s dismissal came after just 10 races, as he failed to match teammate Yuki Tsunoda. The layoff, although not tremendously surprising, took place far earlier than anyone else expected. A driver who showed his worth in F2 and Formula E by winning both the titles had to leave Red Bull unceremoniously after failing to live to the hype.

Shovlin wants Nyck de Vries despite the Red Bull dismissal

Mercedes’ trackside engineer director Andrew Shovlin doesn’t seem to be bothered by the fact that de Vries’ F1 career got cut short. His sudden exit from Red Bull did not stop the Brit from praising de Vries, who was a valuable asset to them as a reserve driver.

Now, Shovlin admitted that he would like to have de Vries back at the team. But also at the same time, he doubts it will happen. Because there are chances that the 28-year-old might want to switch to other racing categories.

According to GP Blog, the Mercedes veteran stated, “He was certainly very useful to us in that role. And we would be happy to welcome him back to that role. But I suspect his focus will be on finding a seat. And if not in Formula 1, then in another major and competitive series.”

Shovlin also added that de Vries was a valuable member in the team. De Vries worked incredibly hard behind the scenes in 2022. He was their development driver and worked under Lewis Hamilton and George Russell.

De Vries’ plan following F1 exit

After the end of his AlphaTauri journey, Nyck de Vries is believed to be heading back to Formula E amidst fearing for his racing career. This was the series where he was once a champion, and tasted the most amount of success. As per The Race, team Nissan could part ways with their current driver Norman Nato in order to sweep in for de Vries.

Furthermore, he was also spotted with Mercedes boss Toto Wolff a few days being sacked by AlphaTauri. The duo were spotted chatting in Monaco. Following that, reports suggested that de Vries was in talks with Wolff regarding his Mercedes future.

In the end, despite everything Nyck de Vries thanked Red Bull and AlphaTauri with a series of statements. He did this for their trust in him and for allowing him to fulfill his long-standing F1 dream.