Nyck de Vries is hopeful that he can get back up to speed “quickly” in Formula E, with this weekend’s season-opening Mexico City E-Prix marking his official return to the series.
The Season 7 World Champion left Formula E at the end of Season 8 – when Gen2 concluded – to complete his move to AlphaTauri in Formula 1. As well known, his time with the Red Bull sister team was cut unbelievably short, as he was dropped after just 10 races.
Despite the obvious disappointment of 2023, De Vries returns to Formula E this year with Mahindra Racing, a team he doesn’t know too much about. Winning races and fighting for podiums certainly isn’t on the agenda, at least not until Gen3.5 is introduced in Season 11.
There is no hiding the fact Mahindra has one of the weakest packages on the grid; however, De Vries knows that he’s joined a long-term project. Mahindra’s long-term project has arguably become longer after a troubling pre-season, with their running in Valencia having been limited due to De Vries’ car being damaged in the paddock fire.
Mahindra were granted additional private testing time to make up for what they lost, although they ended up losing a lot of their additional time due to poor weather when they tried to complete the running.
As a result, De Vries enters the Season 10 opener having completed the least laps on the grid during the off-season, putting him at an immediate disadvantage. Nevertheless, he’s still looking forward to starting his “journey” with Mahindra.
“I’m very excited to get back to racing,” De Vries said. “I’m also looking forward to racing together with Mahindra Racing – we’ve spent a lot of time preparing, and now this is the first time we’re on track racing and competing, and that’s what it’s all about.
“So, it’s exciting to start that journey properly. Mexico is a very cool race; the fans are always passionate and excited. So I’m looking forward to going back there, too.”
Whilst the recent off-season hasn’t been great for De Vries, he did complete some testing in the Gen3 machinery before Season 9. Before his move to AlphaTauri was announced, it was expected that he’d join Maserati MSG Racing, resulting in some testing being carried out.
It all means he’s not a complete stranger to the Gen3 era of Formula E, although he openly admits he’s “still adapting” to the new machinery.
“I did a couple of tests just before I left Formula E, but that was a while ago, and it was very early days for the Gen3 car, so a lot has moved on since then,” said De Vries. “It’s a little bit different in terms of its characteristics, and there are a lot of new things that I’m getting up to speed with.
“I would say I’m still adapting to the Gen3 car, but the team is very supportive and we’re making steps all the time. I hope that I will be quickly up to speed with everything, but I would say it’s still a learning process, especially when we go racing because it has changed significantly and, of course, we do our homework, but I also need to go through it to learn and to experience it.”
