Nyck de Vries finished in fourteenth place in Jeddah on Sunday, just like at his first race in Bahrain. The Dutchman was reasonably satisfied, but still saw plenty of room for improvement.
“I thought I couldn’t attack enough,” said 28-year-old De Vries via play. “The speed itself wasn’t bad, but I couldn’t get into positions fast enough and got stuck in dirty air. Our competitors Williams and Haas have a very high top speed, so it’s extremely difficult to overtake them.”
De Vries had started eighteenth and gradually managed to fight his way through the race. “Especially the last ten, thirteen laps when I had a clear track to close the gap to Zhou, I thought the pace was strong. But when you get to 1.5 seconds, you run into a wall.”
“I finished another race and learned a lot, but I still need to be able to attack a little more. I felt a step better than Bahrain all weekend up to and including qualifying and in terms of race pace I also felt that something more was possible than two weeks ago. Only there were also phases when I was not strong enough.”
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De Vries enjoyed fighting with Sargeant
De Vries still stood out in the final phase with a nice overtaking action on Williams driver Logan Sargeant. The driver from Sneek enjoyed the fight with the American. “I had to brake really deep to pass him,” he analyzed his overtaking action.
“We had to, because with DRS the top speed of the Williams is 6 kilometers per hour faster than ours. Fortunately he gave me space and it all went well. I hope I didn’t subscribe to that fourteenth place , in Bahrain I also finished in this position. It is also only the second race of the season. It was also a very hot race. I am curious about Melbourne.”
Sergio Pérez booked a Grand Prix victory for the fifth time in his career on Sunday. Max Verstappen finished second and George Russell completed the podium, although the Briton needed a time penalty from Fernando Alonso (fourth). The Formula 1 season will continue in two weeks with the Australian Grand Prix.
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