De Vries will finally race again: 'Last year was a rollercoaster'

De Vries makes a relaxed impression, that is clear to see. The Dutchman sits in the press room of the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez, the circuit he was not allowed to visit with AlphaTauri last season. When F1 showed up in Mexico, De Vries had already been pushed aside by the Red Bull family. But forgotten about Formula 1, he is happy to be back on familiar ground.

De Vries grateful for new opportunity in Formula E

"My general feeling is... very excited, very happy, grateful," De Vries said. "I had a little bit of a rollercoaster year. I'm very grateful for the warm welcoming from the whole Formula E community. It's really nice to start a season in Mexico where there's a lot of passion for our sport, a lot of appreciation. So really happy, had a good winter, spent time with family and just looking forward to go racing again."

De Vries opted for a contract with Mahindra, an Indian team that was mostly at the back of the grid last season. In any case, the outside world has few expectations from De Vries. "We're in a good team and I think we have a strong foundation. Of course, the hardware has remained the same from last year, but that doesn't mean we can improve as an organization. I believe we've made some progress already."

Mahindra needs to make strides

Will that be enough to catch up with big teams like Jaguar and Porsche? "It's not a process that is done overnight. I think the team has already had a great foundation. I think everyone is very much on board believes in the perspective and we’ve just got to be patient and manage the internal and external expectations in the short term."

A metre away sits a driver who starts the season with a completely different frame of mind. For Jake Dennis is the reigning Formula E champion and is going for title prolongation. Six months after that celebratory day in London, the Brit is happy to get back to work. The Red Bull Racing simulator driver says of his chances in 2024, and first of all in Mexico City: "It's been a long time for everyone and Formula E racing always requires such attention to detail, reading the strategy, reading the race. "Drivers having different views of how the race is going to go, so just generally avoiding the chaos. So I feel like everyone did a really good job of that towards the end of last year. We're fully in the swing of things, but six months break is a long time. So I'd imagine there's going to be some some drama, but hopefully we're at the front of it and we can just have an easy race, but it never happens," Dennis laughed.