"He is mature enough to understand the sport" - Daniel Ricciardo on Nyck de Vries' exit

AlphaTauri driver Daniel Ricciardo recently stated that Nyck de Vries is mature and experienced enough to understand the decision of his sacking from the Italian team.

It was announced last week that the Dutch driver will be sacked from the team after he failed to impress the Red Bull bosses in the 2023 season. He was replaced by Daniel Ricciardo, who has the third driver on the Austrian team and notched up the slot.

As per Telegraph, Daniel Ricciardo spoke about De Vries's sacking and said:

“Nyck is also in his late twenties and I think he is mature enough to understand the sport. As I know myself if I just look at my last year. A year ago I didn't think I would still be driving a Formula 1 car and now I'm here. It's about how you deal with setbacks and how you come out of it. I wish Nyck the best and if I ever see him on the Formula 1 grid again I would be delighted.”

“It happened very quickly," he added. "The summer break might have been a slightly more logical time, but we all know that Red Bull can be quite unconventional. I felt really good in the car, but know that the AlphaTauri has some limitations. I'm going to do my best in the car and try with my experience to push the team. And then hopefully make sure I can do a lap this weekend that I can be proud of.”

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Daniel Ricciardo explains his situation on not having a physio

Daniel Ricciardo stated that currently, he was a 'lone wolf' and was taking help from de Vries's former trainer Pyry Samela.

In his pre-race press conference, the Aussie said:

"So I'm a lone wolf. Lone wolf, is that what you call it? I’ve got Pyry [Salmela] helping me out. You might know him as Piru, Piry, I don't know, but I got the right pronunciation. So Pyry is going to just help out on race weekends just to kind of make the flow of the weekend go a little smoother. But yeah, like a lot of things, in this time off…"

"I always said if I come back to the sport, I want to do things a little differently," Daniel Ricciardo confirmed. "I also wanted to find that self-motivation and make sure that… I wanted it to come from me, you know what I mean? The training, all of it, the mindset, I wanted to get back into the sport, because it's truly coming from me and what my heart desires. So I've been doing it myself this year and I've got the answers I wanted."

It will be interesting to see how Daniel Ricciardo fares in his opening race back in the sport.