Franz Tost on the 'emotional decision' to end cooperation with Nyck De Vries

• F1

Many were surprised by the decision of the head of AlphaTauri to end cooperation with Nyck de Vries. Immediately after the end of the cooperation, AlphaTauri confirmed that the new driver of their team will be Daniel Ricciardo.

AlphaTauri team principal Franz Tost confirmed in a media interview that the decision was emotional. Nyck de Vries failed to show what was expected of him, and Tost explained why. “This was also a very emotional decision because we have a really good relationship with Nyck - I just spoke with him on the telephone last week,” said Tost.

“He didn’t have an easy time with us. First of all, as a rookie, the first half of the season is not so easy because they are racing at many racetracks which they don’t know, like Melbourne, Miami, Saudi Arabia.

Then they come to Baku where it’s a sprint race, which means it’s only FP1 then it’s already qualifying”.

Franz Tost and his comparison

Tost made a comparison between De Vries and Oscar Piastri, who showed much more as a rookie.

“Nowadays if a young driver comes to Formula 1, he really has to be prepared in the best possible way, which means for me at least five to six thousand kilometers of private testing with an old car, like Alpine did with Piastri - this is the way to go”.

It was not easy to make such a decision, but De Vries simply failed to show what was expected of him. In particular, Tost was disappointed with his performances on tracks he had previously known. “Coming back to Nyck it was difficult for him, also.

Our car was not so competitive, and if a car is not so good, it’s even more complicated. I expected a much better performance in Austria and in Silverstone, because both of these tracks Nyck knew quite well. But the performance didn’t come up and we decided to change him - also thinking to the second half of the season, where he doesn’t know Singapore, Japan, Mexico, Austin and Qatar, which would not have made it quite easy”.

Source: CRASH