Christian Horner gives a brutally honest verdict on Red Bull sacking Nyck De Vries
Nyck De Vries was sacked by AlphaTauri just after 11 rounds of the ongoing 2023 F1 season.
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Christian Horner (Credits: GPFans) and Nyck De Vries (Credits: SBNation.com)
Nyck De Vries’s dream of joining an F1 team full-time came true this year, but it was brutally shattered a few days ago. A lot has been said about the decision in the F1 paddock, and the Red Bull Team Principal, Christian Horner, has also come forward and given an honest verdict on why the Dutchman was sacked midway through the 2023 campaign.
Horner has been associated with Red Bull since the start of the 2005 campaign and has got a major say in the decisions that are made around its junior team, AlphaTauri. He and Helmut Marko are the main pillars on which Red Bull and the Faneza-based AlphaTauri have run since their respective inceptions.
Nyck De Vries came into the 2023 campaign high on confidence, but a string of disappointing outings ultimately led to his sacking by the Red Bull group. Horner was recently asked to dwell on the thought process behind the decision, and while talking about it, he added, “He’s not a young driver as such, from an age perspective. And I just didn’t see how it fitted within the junior program. It was always a stopgap.”
“I think there was a general feeling that Nyck wasn’t quite hitting the mark. And then the question was what are the options if we were to switch things around? And from a Red Bull Racing perspective, the most interesting option for me was to see how Daniel performed.” The 49-year-old has made it clear that De Vries was never going to fit in the Red Bull setup because of a plethora of reasons.
Daniel Ricciardo has taken Nyck De Vries’s place at AlphaTauri
While Nyck De Vries has been handed a painful exit by the Red Bull group, his place at the AlphaTauri F1 team has been given to the former eight-time Grand Prix winner, Daniel Ricciardo. The Australian is making a comeback on the grid after sitting on the sidelines since the end of the 2022 season of the sport.
While Daniel Ricciardo has been all smiles since he arrived at the Franz Tost-led team, he is well aware of the bigger picture as far as his hopes of fighting at the north end of the grid are concerned. Many pundits see his AlphaTauri run as an opportunity for him to showcase his skills and prove once again that he belongs in F1.
The Honey Badger wants a top seat in F1 in the upcoming years, and his stint with AlphaTauri could prove to be a launching pad in that direction. However, he has to be extremely careful with his opportunity, as his AlphaTauri run could be his last stint in F1 if he doesn’t impress the on-lookers.
In case you missed it:
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- Christian Horner claims Daniel Ricciardo looked ‘broken’ after McLaren exit before Red Bull came to his rescue
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Rishabh Negi
(3244 Articles Published)