F1 News: Mercedes Interested In Taking On Nyck de Vries

Mercedes confirm Nyck de Vries would be welcome back after AlphaTauri firing.

Mercedes trackside engineering director, Andrew Shovlin, has confirmed that the Brackley-based squad would welcome Nyck de Vries back to the team after he was abruptly dropped by AlphaTauri last week. 

The Dutch driver, who was previously the reserve driver for Mercedes, lost his seat with AlphaTauri last week after just ten races of his F1 rookie season. Red Bull confirmed that eight-time grand prix winner Daniel Ricciardo has replaced de Vries with immediate effect. 

Shortly after the news came out, de Vries was spotted having lunch with Mercedes CEO Toto Wolff in Monaco leading many to believe that he could return to the team in some capacity. 

Whilst speaking to the media ahead of the Hungarian Grand Prix, Shovlin was quizzed by Motorsport.com if de Vries could come back to Mercedes. He responded:

"I think Nyck [de Vries] will be looking for more than just to become a simulator driver so he'll want to be doing racing.

"I've only spoken to him by text, and he said he'll let me know how his plans are coming on.

"He was certainly very useful for us in that role [reserve driver] and would be welcome to get him back in that role. But I suspect his focus will be on finding race seats.

"If it's not in Formula 1, in some other big and competitive series. He's clearly very talented: an F2 champion, a Formula E champion, which is a very difficult series to win.

"He'll be looking back to get into a winning seat again."

Fans are eager to find out what de Vries will do next with many of the opinion that he was dropped too early. However, he has confirmed to social media that he is taking some time for himself whilst he works out where his career will go next.