I haven’t really followed Nyck’s progress, but dropping him mid season like this is a strong statement. Not even Latifi or Mazepin were dropped this hard. This is Ricciardo’s last try, and he has to outperform Tsunoda if he doesn’t want to be dropped either.
![[Chris Medland] „First reported by Dutch media, I'm hearing from multiple sources now that Daniel Ricciardo will replace Nyck de Vries at AlphaTauri with immediate effect“](https://i.imgur.com/PTvFosz.jpg){kind=link}
I haven’t really followed Nyck’s progress, but dropping him mid season like this is a strong statement. Not even Latifi or Mazepin were dropped this hard. This is Ricciardo’s last try, and he has to outperform Tsunoda if he doesn’t want to be dropped either.
Latifi and Mazepin were both pay drivers. Likely, sponsors and money were tied to their seats.
Well, Maz being dropped had serious financial strings attached. And what would a replacement driver have done, had a slightly faster 20th place pace?
And the only reason he was dropped was because of Russia and they didn’t want a direct link from Haas to them.
Right. He would have been there again, paying his way to the bottom