Horner admits early doubts over ‘stopgap’ de Vries: ‘I didn’t see how he fitted'

De Vries was replaced after just 10 races in F1 2023 as Red Bull drafted in Daniel Ricciardo for the remainder of the season.

The 28-year-old Dutchman struggled to get up to speed relative to Yuki Tsunoda, while his early races were littered with mistakes.

It seems de Vries never had the support of Red Bull’s team principal from the start, as revealed in an interview with the F1 Nation Podcast.

“Look, Nyck is a very capable driver, a Formula E champion, a Formula 2 champion, he’s obviously got a lot of experience, he’s not a young driver as such from an age perspective,” Horner said.

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“And I just didn’t see how it fitted within the junior programme. It was almost a stopgap.

“There was a high expectation on him, because while inexperienced in Formula 1 he is obviously a very experienced driver.

Horner conceded that the decision to replace de Vries happened “a little bit quicker than expected” but saw no benefit of keeping him until the summer break.

“That would have meant obviously leaving him in the car until after the summer break,” Horner explained.  “I think the situation was clear.

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“It was a question of ‘OK, what’s the point in waiting?’ If we’re going to do something, we may as well get on with it and give Daniel 12 races to see what he’s capable of.”

“And I think there was a general feeling that Nyck wasn’t quite hitting the mark.

“It all happened a little bit quicker than expected, bearing in mind that we hadn’t completed the test.

“Helmut spoke with Nyck, he was the one that obviously had recruited him, he was the one that spoke with Nyck on about lap 11 of the test, I think.”