De Vries becomes Mercedes F1 reserve driver

De Vries becomes Mercedes F1 reserve driver

Mercedes Formula E driver Nyck de Vries has been nominated as one of Mercedes F1 reserve drivers for the 2021 season.

De Vries will be joining his teammate at Mercedes Formula E team, Stoffel Vandoorne who also has the same reserve role with the F1 champions.

The 2019 Formula 2 Champion got a chance with Mercedes following his F2 championship victory and joined the Mercedes Formula E team for the 2019-20 FE Championship.

The 26-year-old scored his maiden Formula E victory last weekend in Diriyah after dominating throughout the whole race.

Mercedes F1 Team had previously given the reserve driver role to former Mclaren F1 driver Stoffel Vandoorne and Esteban Gutierrez who was a former Haas driver.

Mercedes revealed this during the launch of their 2021 F1 car, the W12 and stated that de Vries will be joining them for the reserve driver role in their 2021 campaign.

“We also have a strong reserve driver line-up for the 2021 season, with Stoffel Vandoorne continuing in the role alongside his Mercedes teammate in Formula E, Nyck de Vries.”

This marks a first official F1 role for de Vries, who previously only served as a development driver with McLaren when he was part of its young driver academy.

De Vries enjoyed his first F1 test at the end of last year when he took part in the Abu Dhabi rookie test at Yas Marina for Mercedes, running alongside Vandoorne.

Gutierrez has not been listed as part of Mercedes’ line-up for the coming year, but it emerged last summer that his superlicence had expired, making him ineligible to race in F1.

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