Nyck de Vries was present at the
Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya to participate in the first free practice session with the
Williams team. After the race, he noted that
Mercedes have made great strides in solving the problems the team was facing.
He called the updates the team brought to Barcelona "very encouraging" after
George Russell and
Lewis Hamilton made it to third and fifth respectively. Hamilton could have potentially made things difficult for his teammate for the final podium spot, but an incident with
Kevin Magnussen caused him to start from a hefty deficit.
De Vries happy with Mercedes progress
De Vries regretted that Hamilton lost his position with that, but thought that the Briton put in a great race afterwards.
"He drove an amazing race to come back from the back of the grid," said the Mercedes reserve driver at the Post Race Show on the
YouTube-channel of
Formula 1.
He also praised George Russell for his defensive work against
Max Verstappen.
"George did an equally incredible job to keep Max behind for so long, even if it was with a bit of help from the DRS," he continued.
As a result, De Vries thinks Mercedes can take a lot of positives from the weekend and hopes the team can build on this to move further forward on the grid.