The factors that have helped De Vries land a spot in the Formula 1

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Nyck de Vries has successfully landed a 2023 F1 contract with AlphaTauri, after a series of impressive performances in 2022, which included practice racing for the Spanish Grand Prix, which garnered praise fromWilliams Racing.

His scheduled practice at the French Grand Prix with Mercedes, and his substitution of Sebastian Vettel for the Italian Grand Prix practice with Aston Martin, all demonstrated his competitive skills on the track, before he received the unlikely opportunity to race for Williams Racing, at the Italian Grand Prix, on account of an injured Alex Albon.

His subsequent impressive performance at Monza led fellow Dutchman and F1 World Champion Max Verstappen to encourage de Vries to contact head of Red Bull’s Driver Development Programme, Dr. Helmut Marko, for an opportunity for 2023.

It then turned out that owing to Pierre Gasly’s move to replace Fernando Alonso at Alpine, AlphaTauri was looking for a new driver, thus granting de Vries a seat. The team had previously considered signing American Colton Herta of IndyCar fame, which would also aid in increasing the team’s popularity in USA where the F1 is slated to hold 3 races next year.

However, a lack of a sufficient number of Super License points prevented the deal from going through. AlphaTauri have also stressed that while Nyck de Vries signed his contract after the Singapore Grand Prix and made headlines with his performance at the Italian Grand Prix, he was under consideration prior to both events. His consistency, coupled with the exit of Pierre Gasly together helped to finalize the contract.