McLaren CEO Zak Brown was brutally blunt when he told reporters that Nyck de Vries had little chance of driving for McLaren in the future and thus was let go after being part of the team's junior programme since 2010.
De Vries has been highly rated since his karting days and on the strength of winning the 2010 and 2011 World Karting Championship the young Dutchman looked a shoe-in for a seat with McLaren in F1. He was there three years earlier than Stoffel Vandoorne, another McLaren reject who bristled with promise until the team destroyed him.
Although De Vries, now driving for ART in Formula 2, ticked all the boxes he never got the call to step up and was, in fact, looked over when the team promoted Vandoorne to the F1 team alongside Fernando Alonso; how that turned out has been well covered.
Speaking to reporters in Monaco on Thursday, Brown confirmed De Vries' axing from their programme, "We felt it would be highly unlikely he would end up in a McLaren, given our current driver situation – that he would be a free agent to be able to drive for other teams because often.
"When a Junior driver is under a contract that then deters other teams from taking them and then ultimately can end up sometimes hurting their career which we don’t think is the right thing to do."
McLaren this year promoted rookie Lando Norris, who Brown helps manage as one of the many hats he wears in the paddock and brought in Carlos Sainz at the behest of Fernando Alonso. And it appears the combo is working for the team.
Brown explained, "We’ve got our junior drivers, junior driver and Sergio and we’ve got two very young – well, one very young Lando Norris and Carlos Sainz who we’re extremely happy with."
"We don’t see the need, at this point, to stack up some drivers and then run into a situation where you don’t have a home for them, so we felt that it was best," he added.
Apart from Lewis Hamilton McLaren have had little success with young drivers over the past decade, and actually harmed the careers of the likes of Heikki Kovalainen, Sergio Perez, Kevin Magnussen and most recently Vandoorne.
Meanwhile, 24-year-old De Vries, perhaps inspired by the turn of events, triumphed in a chaotic Monaco F2 race on Friday, adding to his victory in the Barcelona sprint race a couple of weeks ago. He lies second in the championship standings after seven points scoring rounds.
Big Question: Were McLaren wise to let Nyck leave the team?
https://www.grandprix247.com/2017/02/22/2017-mclaren-honda-young-drivers-revealed/
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