Written by William Stephens, Edited by Tanishka Vashee
Many amazing talents have gone through the ranks over the years. Some have made it to top level motorsport and have shone, others, like the drivers I will cover in this series have failed to make it to the top level or simply couldn't perform at the highest level in motorsport.
Nyck de vries is no exception when it comes to an amazingly talented driver, through his career he has proved this with exceptional results in many categories of racing.
Nyck started his career like most young drivers in karts in 2008 and 2009 he won the WSK world series in the KF3 class, as well as the German junior championship. In 2009 he also won the European KF3 championship. The following years, he won the world karting championship in 2010 as well as 2011.
He started racing cars in 2012 in the Formula Renault 2.0 eurocup getting his first podium on debut as well as at the Hungaroring round to finish 5th. He also took part in the Formula Renault NEC winning in his home race at Assen as well as a total of four podiums of the eleven races to finish tenth in the standings.
2013 brought more success with wins in the eurocup to finish fifth again. In 2014 he got his first car racing championships within the 2014 Formula Renault 2.0 Alps and the 2014 Formula Renault 2.0 eurocup. 2015 saw de Vries progress to Formula Renault 3.5 where he picked up a win in the final race as well as four other podiums throughout the season.
2016 seem de vries progress into the gp3 (now formula 3) series where he had a decent result to finish sixth overall with a win in the second Monza race. He beat both Charles Leclerc and Alexander Albon who were his teammates.
2017 saw de vries move up the feeder series hierarchy into Formula 2. He raced for two teams in the different halves of the season, getting a win at Monaco as well as three other podiums before switching teams and getting a final podium finishing sixth overall highest of the rookies. 2018 saw a move to Prema where he finished fourth overall with three wins and a handful more podiums. 2018 also saw de vries join racing team nederland in lmp2 in the world endurance championship.
2019 saw a much better year to win the title with a very dominant season with four wins and eight more podiums. Despite this result he couldn't get a drive within formula one but was able to join Mercedes formula e team where he races to this day having won the first ever world championship season title.
Throughout his career he aimed for formula 1 having been a part of the McLaren young driver programme from 2010 to before his 2019 season as well as being a part of the Audi driver academy from 2016 to september 2019. He is now a Mercedes reserve driver in formula 1 as well as a testing and reserve driver for the Toyota racing team in world endurace a series he has competed in with racing team nederland and g drive. De Vries also has taken part in the european le mans series with g drive in 2020 and 2021.
With all these titles and race wins to his name, will Nyck de Vries ever get a proper go at formula one? The answer is no, most likely unless any driver is unable to compete which is a real shame for a driver of such skill.
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