Nyck de Vries’ career in Formula 1 might have been cut short by Red Bull, but his debut with Williams was one of the best for a rookiein recent years.
Filling in for Alex Albon at the Italian Grand Prix, who withdrew after contracting appendicitis and needed to undergo an emergency appendectomy, De Vries made his F1 weekend debut with Williams at Monza.
Albon had already done much of the work for the race on Friday, with De Vries getting parachuted into the car on Saturday in time for qualifying.
After qualifying in 13th place, De Vries set his sights on earning points for Williams by working his way up to P10. He was helped by the fact that several drivers had grid penalties, which meant he started from P8 for the race.
Following 53 laps, De Vries managed to hold off charging drivers including the Alfa Romeo of Zhou Guanyu and the Alpine of Esteban Ocon to finish the race in P9 and earn two points on his debut.
Williams ownership wanted an American driver over Nyck de Vries
After being awarded Driver of the Day by fans, there was a lot of talk over whether De Vries did enough to earn a full-time race seat given Nicholas Latifi was likely to be dropped that season.
The reason De Vries had the shot with Williams in the first place was due to the links as a Mercedes customer team, with the Dutchman having won the Formula E championship with the German manufacturer in 2021.
In the end, Williams elected to go with upcoming American talent Logan Sargeant due to a specific reason according to De Vries when speaking on the Cool Room podcast.
“The team was very keen to have me in the car for the following year, but the ownership is American and they were very pro-having an American driver in the car. So even though I was hoping to get an opportunity there, it appeared to be difficult and impossible because the ownership wanted an American driver,” said De Vries.
How Nyck de Vries career panned out after Williams debut
The lack of a seat at Williams did not stop De Vries from eventually getting a seat at AlphaTauri for the 2023 season, where he partnered alongside Yuki Tsunoda.
Red Bull was in need of a Plan B to replace the outgoing Pierre Gasly after its original driver, Colton Herta, was denied a super licence by the FIA for not having enough points.
Helmut Marko had been impressed by De Vries and the prospect of poaching him from the Mercedes driver pool also appealed, so offered him the seat in the immediate aftermath of his Italian GP performance.
De Vries only lasted half the season before he was replaced by Daniel Ricciardo, largely due to his lack of performance relative to Tsunoda and results on track.
