De Vries: We're making progress but F1 midfield is tight

Much has changed for De Vries since he seized the moment, that being the Italian Grand Prix as supersub for Alex Albon with Williams; making his debut for the team and scoring points to boot, made it essential that the Dutch ace was on the F1 grid.

A life-altering, chance lunch with fellow countryman, mate and F1 World Champion Max Verstappen, led to a call with RBR consultant and driver boss Helmut Marko. This weekend's Grand Prix in Baku will be his fourth in F1, and his third as a driver for Red Bull's junior team.

With that comes a life he would not have conceived a year ago, which he shed insight into his new found lifestyle, hobnobbing with A-list athletes to doing sim time, in the team's preview: “Initially post-Melbourne I returned quickly to the UK to spend a day in the simulator, to do some correlation work and also look ahead to some of the races coming after this break."

He continued: "I had a short trip to the Netherlands for a couple of commitments after which I was invited to the Milan-Napoli (1-0) game. It was a really cool experience as the Champions League is a very big deal. It’s always cool to witness sports in real life, as I think sometimes TV doesn’t do it justice, and this was a really unique experience.

"When you’re in a stadium with 80,000 people watching the 22 players on the pitch, the atmosphere and emotion gives you goosebumps. It was the same at the start of the year, when we were in New York for the livery launch and got to see the NBA game between the Brooklyn Nets and the Chicago Bulls. I just love the real sport action.

"After that I attended the Monaco Tennis Open, which should have been a bit quieter, although I went with Stef (Red Bull Athlete Stefanos Tsitsipas, ranked 3 in world tennis) which made it a bit more challenging to be quiet! I follow tennis very closely as a lot of the top players live in Monaco and go to the same gym I use, and some live in the same building as me.

"My trainer was with me in Monaco where we did a lot of work, and it was also nice to spend some time at home. Now I’m ready to get going again with five races coming up in six weeks, so it will be an intense time."

Turning his attention to the weekend ahead, De Vries noted: "Baku will be my very first Sprint weekend and that will be particularly challenging with just one hour of free practice before qualifying, but I’ve been to the track before, with three-second place finishes in Formula 2. We’re all excited to go racing again after this long break.

"The track is quite unique in the sense that, usually on street tracks, overtaking is very challenging, but the extremely long straight produces opportunities, which is why the races at Baku have often been quite eventful, so hopefully things will go our way and we’ll have something to cheer about come the end of it."

Three races into his F1 career, rookie De Vries has yet to score a point, while Williams' American driver Logan Sargeant is in the same boat, however, McLaren's Oscar Piastri has four points thanks to his strong showing on home soil, earlier in the month.

AlphaTauri only have one point thanks to De Vries' teammate Yuki Tsunoda [P10 in Melbourne] but the AT04is not a kind car to its drivers, which means with a tighter midfield than ever before, being on the wrong side of it has been their plight.

But De Vries sees light at the end of the tunnel: "I feel we are making progress, but the midfield is still very tight, and it is very challenging to fight for points because in a 'normal' race the top ten is solidly occupied. We need to make sure we are ready to capitalise on any mistakes made by those who would normally be top ten.

"While I see signs of progress, Baku demands a lot of straight-line speed and so far, our straight-line speed has not been that competitive. Let’s wait and see how it works out," added De Vries, whose AlphaTauri is powered by the same engines bolted onto the back of the pace-setting Red Bulls.