Mercedes Director Predicts Nyck de Vries Could Replace Sergio Perez in Red Bull
AlphaTauri's new driver Nyck de Vries may soon join the Red Bull team, according to Mercedes' Trackside Engineering Director, Andrew Shovlin.
Shovlin stated that he "wouldn't be surprised" if the Dutch driver made the move to Red Bull in the near future, even though de Vries was previously a reserve driver for Mercedes.
Mercedes decided to let de Vries go to pursue the opportunity to race for AlphaTauri in the 2023 season. However, Shovlin believes that de Vries has the potential to succeed in F1 and that Mercedes might end up regretting their decision to let him go.
Shovlin explained in the Max & Nyck book by Ivo Pakvis and Stijn Keuris:
"I have no doubt Nyck has the ability to win races if he is with the right team and with the right car.
"Whether he can become World Champion will be down to him. He has less time to achieve it given his age, but he makes up for that with his experience.
"We had an agreement with Nyck that if we couldn't put him with a Mercedes team, he could go for the best option. And we might regret letting him go.
"I wouldn't be surprised if it’s not long when we’re racing against him in the Red Bull factory team. I wouldn't be at all surprised if that happened in the next 12 months or so."
Although de Vries has achieved success in motorsports, winning championships in both Formula 2 and Formula E, the priority for Mercedes was to assist him in securing a racing opportunity. According to Shovlin, while de Vries was highly regarded by the team, they were eager to support him in his pursuit of a racing seat. He continued:
"He fitted in our team very well, but you can’t hold someone back.
"He was the ideal test and reserve driver for us. If we could have kept him on the shelf to use him when needed, we would have done that, but then we would have prevented a driver pursuing his dream.
"With his Formula E title, he has meant a lot to the Mercedes brand and he has also been excellent as a reserve driver. That is why we also wanted to help him further.
"This is also important for the future. The chance of Nyck wanting to come back to this team will be influenced by how fair we’ve been with him over the years. There's nothing to say that Nyck won’t be driving a Mercedes one day in the future."
Shovlin added that he was surprised there was not more interest in the Dutch driver. He said:
"What I think was weird was that there wasn’t more of a fight over his services.
"Only Red Bull made a call purely based on ability. And I think there were political elements behind him not getting a seat elsewhere."