Reserve driver Nyck de Vries scores points at Monza on his debut Formula 1 Race
12 September 2022 (Monday) — The two time Formula E World Champion Nyck de Vries competed in his first Formula One Grand Prix at Monza yesterday after sitting in for Williams Driver Alex Albon who had to go in for surgery for appendicitis.
This was a massive opportunity for Nyck as we discussed in Saturday’s post as the results of this race will have a very positive influence on his future in Formula 1.
The part that makes it more impressive is that he scored these points in a Williams, which is arguably the slowest car on the grid if you look at their standings in the Constructors Championship. Leading into this race, Williams was in last place with only 4 points. A whole 21 points behind Aston Martin who were sitting second last at 25 points.
Looking back over the weekend
Alex Albon was doing an impressive performance in the Williams in the Friday practice sessions so there is some proof that there was pace in the car at the Monza circuit and an opportunity for Williams to get some points. The opportunity for points was amplified further by the fact that 9 cars were expected to take grid penalties.
Unfortunately, due to Alex’s unexpected appendicitis diagnosis he was unable to participate for the rest of the weekend and we all wish him a speedy recovery for the Singapore Grand Prix at the end of the month!
Nyck de Vries — who is a reserve driver for Mercedes, Aston Martin and Williams — was the obvious choice to replace him since he participated in FP1 in the Aston Martin on Friday. It is mandatory for F1 teams to run rookie drivers in occasional FP1 sessions throughout the year — I think it’s at least twice throughout the year, but it could be 3, let me know in the comments below regarding the specifics.
The Aston Martin hadn’t been great around the track all weekend, in both qualifying and the race, in fact they both retired their cars during the race due to technical issues. Nobody expected much from Nyck in that session and cars don’t really show their true pace in early practice sessions. These rookie sessions generally translate to “You can drive the car but just don’t crash it!”. Nyck did mostly okay except for a brief moment where he ran wide and and into the gravel.
Moving on to Saturday, Nyck did well in FP3 and looked ready to make some leaps in qualifying — for a Williams at least.
In qualifying he managed to get his Williams through to Q2 after getting out of Q1 in P15. It was a phenomenal performance from the Dutchman given his car and the fact that it was his first ever Formula 1 Qualifying session.
To put icing on the cake for Nyck and add salt to the wound for his teammate Nicholas Latifi, Latifi was out of Q1 by a single position at P16, so the two were split by just the cutoff line with 2 one hundredths of a second between each other.
Nyck participated in Q2 and ended up in P13.
He had a lock up in sector 2 on his final flying lap during the session however it wouldn’t have been much of an improvement as he already had a yellow first sector at the time that happened.
Even if he did improve his lap time it wouldn’t have mattered since the two drivers in front of him were Valtteri Bottas and Esteban Ocon who were going to take grid penalties for Sunday anyway. This means that the only way to gain an additional advantage in qualifying would be to beat Pierre Gasly who was over 4 tenths faster.
Sunday’s race day was upon us and after the crazy grid penalties which saw 9 drivers take grid penalties in various degrees, the starting grid barely resembled the Saturday’s qualifying results.
Following that shuffle, Nyck was sitting in a fancy P8 and his teammate Latifi sat behind him in P10.
The goal with Williams is generally to either hang on and hope something drastic happens at the front in order for them to bag a point or two. And in the rare case that they’re starting in the points, they usually fall back outside the points. So with Nyck and Latifi in P8 and P10 respectively their mutual realistic goals were to try their very best to hold their position.
The opening lap saw Latifi fall down the order, but Nyck manage to hold his position throughout the first lap chaos. It was now his job to keep his nose clean and just hold on. The race for the midfield was relatively uneventful aside from the occasional Red Bull, Ferrari and Mercedes cars cutting their way through the traffic to get to the front of the pack.
Somehow towards the end of the race we saw Nyck still in the fight sitting in P10 fighting closely behind Gasly but also defending a very hungry Zhou who had his eye on that points position. Nyck was exceeding expectations as everybody just expected him to beat Latifi, not to to score any points.
It was a tense moment that came to a bit of a weird end with Ricciardo’s car breaking down in the closing laps of the Grand Prix.
A safety car was called out and we saw Gasly P8, Nyck P9, and Zhou P10 after they overtook the broken McLaren. Long story short (this literally needs its own post), the race ended under the safety car and Nyck bagged his first points at his first ever Formula One Grand Prix appearance.
Everything worked out amazingly in Nyck’s favour here since he was starting to have braking issues around the time when Ricciardo’s car broke down. If the McLaren didn’t break down, that extra points position wouldn’t have been up for grabs and the race wouldn’t have been neutralised. Zhou would have most likely taken that 10th place points position away from Nyck due to his brake issues.
Due to Nyck’s braking issue and another issue where his delta timing on his car was giving him weird signals, he did a very erratic braking move while Zhou was following closely behind him. Fortunately both cars came out of that situation safely.
However, this erratic manoeuvre caught the eyes of the FIA stewards and his debut points were now at risk of a penalty.
The FIA released the following statement:
Nyck’s debut 2 points for achieving P9 in the race were officially in the bag and unfortunately for Latifi, he finished P15 with only Kevin Magnussen behind him in the Haas and the remaining drivers retiring (including both Aston Martins).
Williams now has 6 points in the driver’s championship and Nyck de Vries holds a third of those while Albon holds the other 4. Latifi unfortunately hasn’t scored anything for the team this year and this actually puts Nyck ahead of Latifi in the Formula One Driver’s Championship.
Williams is still last in the Constructors Standings at 6 points while Aston Martin are sitting 9th at 25 points. It is very unlikely that Williams will catch Aston Martin, but if they are to have any chance they are going to need both their drivers fighting for points.
In Nyck’s interview with F1 journalists he said: “I grabbed my opportunity with both hands!” and on top of all that he was voted Driver of the day.
What could this mean for Nicholas Latifi? Could we see Nic being replaced by Nyck for the rest of the season in a last ditch effort by Williams to claw their way back up and take the fight to Aston Martin?
Either way, Nyck crushed it this weekend and it probably wouldn’t be much of a surprise if we see him on the track more in the near future.
Thanks for reading! I’m always open to comments and thoughts, so please let me know if you’ve enjoyed this post and leave some claps!