F1 News

No good start for De Vries Austria sprint race

De Vries at fault again: "My start was very bad"

1 July 2023 at 16:41

Nyck de Vries qualified nicely on P14 for the sprint race of the Austrian GP, but his finishing position was disappointing again. The Dutch AlphaTauri driver finished P17, which he said was due to a poor start.

De Vries had poor start

Speaking to Viaplay after the session, the F1 driver said: "My start was very bad. I was 'on target' but I didn't move. So I think the target was way too conservative. At the beginning of the race it was okay, but we had a lot of degradation on inters. So I wanted to move quickly to slicks, preferably on the same lap as George [Russell] went. We waited a lap."

De Vries continued: "I thought we were quite strong on slicks. But compared to the Williams, we lacked a lot of speed." Returning to that 'target', the Dutchman says: "We have a clutch target that we have to meet. I thought I was right on that, but I didn't move. On releasing the clutch to get moving you then have mega wheelspin."