21/09/17 Jerez Q&A with Nyck De Vries: “I feel very happy in my new environment.”

Young Dutch driver Nyck De Vries joined the Racing Engineering team just two race weekends ago, at Spa, and despite not having worked with the Spanish team before or being able to test the car prior to his first race he immediately showed why he will be a future F1 star. At Spa, he scored points in the first race finishing seventh and on Sunday he was on the podium with an excellent second place. He was equally fast at Monza, on Saturday he led virtually the entire race in very difficult wet conditions until contact with Leclerc put both men out on the final lap.

Below Nyck tells us of his busy schedule in the last few weeks and what he expects from the next race weekend in Jerez.

After the two race weekends in Spa and Monza with your new team Racing Engineering, do you feel that both sides adapted well to each other?

Yes, I do. I feel very happy in my new environment. The team gave me a very warm welcome. At Monza, I felt really at home in the team. I think we both did a good job in adapting to each other quickly. Of course, we now have to see how the remaining part of the season will go, but I am confident we will be able to be competitive and to fight at the front.

There is a one month break between Monza and the upcoming event in Jerez. Even though no racing has taken place, you were quite busy during these last weeks. Tell us a bit what you have been doing.

Yes, I've been quite busy. I spent quite la lot of time in England, at McLaren, to do simulator work and training. Last week I spent pretty much the whole week in working in the simulator and training. I had to go to Germany as well to shake down the DTM car of Team Abt. Now I am on my way to England again to do more simulator work and training for this week and I believe we have some meeting commitment as well. I have TV filming on Saturday and I will have some more PR and media tasks coming up next week. And then, obviously, I am ready for Jerez.

Jerez is up next on the calendar. A very important venue as it’s Racing Engineering’s home race. How do you prepare for this event?

The work I did over the last few weeks and described before is also preparation for Jerez. Sunday, the 1st of October, I will fly out to Jerez and to the team to prepare our weekend, as well as we can, in the team simulator. We will talk about the event ahead of the weekend, to be prepared in the best way possible. This will actually be the first time for us to prepare an event together at the workshop.

You finished second in Spa and had an exciting Feature Race with an unlucky ending in Monza, what are the chances to see you on the podium again in Jerez?

I always think it’s difficult to predict results because at the end of the day racing can be as you saw in Monza. You never know what will happen, and as mentioned previously, I think we adapted well to each other. I believe that the team has a strong package and a good organization. They have everything, all the tools available to them, to fight at the front and I see no reason why we should not able to do that in Jerez. To predict where are going to finish is always difficult, but we are going there to fight for a win.