French GP: Nyck de Vries reflects on FP1 run in the Mercedes

Nyck de Vries was fairly pleased with his run in FP1 on Friday at the French Grand Prix, though admitted that there was room for improvement.

The Dutch driver was at the wheel of the Mercedes W13 on Friday afternoon as he took the place of Lewis Hamilton for the first hour of running here at Paul Ricard.

He posted the ninth-fastest time as he sought to get to grips with the car in the limited running that he could do, with him also getting a session under his belt earlier in the year when driving for Williams.

It remains to be seen where his future lies in terms of F1 participation, though, with Toto Wolff revealing to Sky yesterday that Mercedes might consider letting him go if they cannot find a spot for him soon.

Time will tell what happens there, of course, but in the meantime de Vries was pretty happy with the work he got done in the hour of practice, though he said a few mistakes prevented it from going even better.

“I felt like we had a good session,” de Vries said to the gathered press post-session here in France.

“I felt like we were fairly quick on the pace. The grip is high here so it gives you a lot of confidence to push.

“I wasn’t entirely satisfied with my soft tyre run because on my second lap I made a few mistakes and then we didn’t do two consecutive runs. Nevertheless, it was a good session. 

“We managed to do good work for the team to get a little bit more learning on the things they have brought for this weekend, so generally I think it was a good session.”