by Last season de Vries sampled the 2022 Williams, Mercedes and Aston Martin cars, and also completed several laps in the 2021 Alpine.
Tost says the Dutchman’s recent F1 mileage, as well as his overall experience in other categories, enabled him to offer useful feedback when he tried the AlphaTauri at the Abu Dhabi test in November, which the team warned about some of the shortcomings of the AT03.
“Nyck de Vries is doing a very good job,” said Tost. “He’s got a lot of experience, you can see and feel that he’s 28 years old, and he’s won a lot of races and championships.
“And I think he will be able to adapt to F1 immediately. I expect him to perform well from the first qualifying onwards.
“Of course, always when a new driver comes, if he is not a young driver coming from a lower league, he brings in some inputs, some technical ideas. And with Nyck we were lucky that the last year in contact with many teams and many cars.
“And I think our engineers got good technical feedback from him, especially after the Abu Dhabi test when he did a lot of laps, and when, fortunately, he complained a lot about the car .Because this was a wake-up call for the engineers.
“And hopefully we can provide him with a car that performs the way he likes.”
Nyck de Vries, AlphaTauri AT04
Photo by: Red Bull Content Pools
When asked to expand on the results of de Vries’s contribution after the test, Tost said: “A long list to do. I liked it! And it was so funny, because the engineers wanted to claim that our solutions are good, and I always. he said to them, “Look where we are in the league of builders.”
Tost also made it clear that he has already been impressed by the way de Vries works.
“His professional attitude, his discipline, his feedback also regarding the Simulator. Ideas for changing working methods. And I expect a lot of input as well after this test here from his side.
“He shouldn’t feel like a rookie. Because Nyck, as I mentioned before, is very experienced. He’s won races in every category, he’s won championships. And he’s a very good asset for us.”
AlphaTauri technical director Jody Egginton agreed that de Vries has already made a valuable contribution and indicated that there is more to come.
“What we have in Nyck is a guy who is relatively new to F1 racing, has a lot of experience and success in other championships, and is also exposed to the cars of the competitors,” said Egginton.
“So he’s got a lot of information and a lot of information there. It takes time to download all that, so we’ve taken every opportunity, the engineers, to talk to him, and understand his thoughts ., and download all that experience.
“If we’re dealing with a traditional young rookie driver, it’s a very different situation. So for us, it’s a great opportunity.”
