Nyck De Vries has talent to be “high-level race driver”: Williams’ Dave Robson

• Williams’ Dave Robson has heaped praise on Nyck de Vries following his FP1 appearance.
• Former Formula 2 champion De Vries raced for Williams in place of Alex Albon.
• De Vries ran 28 laps of the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya before leaping into the car for an engineering program.

Williams’ Dave Robson has heaped praise on Mercedes reserve Nyck De Vries following his FP1 appearance for the team in Barcelona, with the Head of Vehicle Performance stating that the former Formula 2 champion possesses the talents necessary to be a “high-level race driver.”

De Vries, who won the Formula E title in 2021, has been driving for Mercedes since 2020 and was given the opportunity to race for Williams in place of Alex Albon at the Spanish Grand Prix’s first practice session. Robson was thrilled by the performance of the Dutchman.

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“His pace was there. His ability to understand the tyre and do the out-lap correctly, was really impressive,” said Robson. “And then after that, his feedback post-session was extremely good. He had some very useful comments on the balance of the car, which agrees quite well with what we’ve heard from the two race drivers.

“So, I think in that regard, considering he only gets an hour in the car, I think he did a really good job, and he clearly has what he needs to be to be an absolute top quality competition driver. Yeah, he’s worthy of a place on the grid, I think, but so many people are. I think he took his opportunity well, yesterday and I think he should be you should be pleased and proud of what he did.”

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During his hour in the FW44, De Vries ran 28 laps of the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, finishing 18th fastest and a tenth of a second ahead of Williams driver Nicholas Latifi.

Robson remarked that De Vries performed admirably despite the fact that he did not have much time in the simulator before leaping into the car to run Albon’s engineering program. This made De Vries’s performance all the more remarkable.

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“I think everything he did… was really good. He didn’t put a foot wrong,” said Robson. “He completed the engineering program that we needed him to do, which for us was the most important bit. But, you know, not only did he not have a huge amount of time in the simulator, we gave him the prime tyre for his first run yesterday, which we knew would be a little bit difficult.

“But at least it gave him the opportunity to do a good number of laps. And then to go straight from that all the way to the qualifying compound is a big ask for anyone and actually, you can see in the lap time he did a very good job.”

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