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🇮🇹 F1'22: R16 - An expiring free trial

I'm seeing double! Two Dutch Motorsport world champions on the same grid!


You'd never know it was Nyck de Vries' first Formula 1 race. Standing in for Alex Albon, the Dutch motorsport World Champion eventually took his place on the Monza grid with another Dutch World Champion next to him on the fourth row.

Surrounded by race winners and household names littered throughout the Temple of Speed, the occasion never looked it was too much for de Vries, who - if you only watch F1 - is the guy on work experience standing next to Toto Wolff, but de Vries has been quietly making a name for himself.

And I mean quietly literally. The 2021 Formula E champion with Mercedes gave his team a boon by having a Dutch World champion before their Red Bull rivals achieved the feat. There probably isn't a stigma attached to Formula E by Formula 1, but by my reckoning, de Vries' audition is the second driver to take on an e-prix to Grand Prix in that order, and even the first (Pierre Gasly's cameo in New York 2017) was more out of necessity than as part of a long-term plan.
But even before taking the title in the all-electric racing series, de Vries was a known quantity to F1 teams as he took the Formula 2 title all the way back in the before times of 2019

That puts him already in illustrious company. The likes of George Russell and Charles Leclerc have taken this path successfully and are well-established towards the front of the grid. Mick Schumacher too, but he hasn't been as successful as the others. With the 2019 F2 champion technically seatless, it magnifies again the bottleneck in the driver market.

It's started to be mildly unclogged after the messy saga caused by 2021 F2 champion Piastri's eventual move to McLaren but there's another new contender with Brazilian Felipe Drugovich taking the path less travelled. He's won F2 without a driver academy backing him. 
For all the talk about Andretti and whether an eleventh team is needed or wanted, the number of talented drivers pushing forward feels like it would be a compelling argument to expanding the grid. However, we should also look at some of the current drivers at the top level.

De Vries started the first practice session in green - replacing Seb Vettel at Aston Martin and getting to acclimatise to the fast Italian circuit. He didn't look out of place there.

After the Albon appendix news emerged, de Vries was put in as the caretaker and went on to outqualify Vettel and Lance Stroll as well as Nicholas Latifi, who went out in Q1 and now has fewer points than de Vries. Latifi brings with him a significant amount of investment, so if you want to feel sorry for a billionaire, you do you, but to me, it feels like Albon and de Vries could fight for points and get Williams prize money by not finishing last, rather than taking the easy option.

And while we're on the subject of Williams and what their level should be, there are two caveats to consider. One, is that the Williams is brilliant on top speed. Or in other words, it is a disaster on downforce. In Italy, that's exactly what you're after. There's a reason why Monza is listed as Very Easy on the F1 game, with its reliance on high speed and around half a dozen reasons to use your brakes.

The other caveat is for Williams to look at their long-term progress. In 2018, they got an unexpected double-points finish here. Sergey Sirotkin picking up his first and only F1 point after the race due to Romain Grosjean being disqualified for having an illegal floor. 

Williams need to look inward and ask themselves what their level is. Is it 2018 Sirotkin, picking up an unexpected point while everyone else is in a nightclub or a plane, or Albon and de Vries helping to establish the famous marque in 6th or 7th place in the Constructors' championship?
F1 gets a bit of a break now after the triple-header across Central Europe. The European part of the season is now over. Six flyaway races follow, several will be academic as far as the title is concerned. Max Verstappen has won five races in a row. Those 125 points would put Verstappen 40 or so points behind Lewis Hamilton's entire season.

While one Dutch driver dominates the sport, Nyck de Vries showed that he doesn't just deserve to be in Formula 1, but he showed he belongs on the grid. There aren't many spaces left, but it would be a sporting travesty if de Vries wasn't one of the 20 drivers there in 2023.

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