De Vries: 'Timing seems to be with us for once'

De Vries was testing for Aston Martin at the Italian GP weekend on Friday, but suddenly found himself in the cockpit of Alexander Albon's Williams on Saturday. The Dutchman got the chance to drive his first F1 race and did so with verve. With his P9 finish in Italy, he took half the points the team had up to that point. The phone rang all day the next day. Speaking to Viaplay, the former Formula E and Formula 2 champion says he went to the beach with his father, but it was not very relaxing.

'Timing finally works out' for De Vries

The calls that came in no doubt also had to do with potential employers in Formula 1 wanting to snare the Mercedes reserve driver for 2023. De Vries remains very level-headed about the attention and interest from F1 teams: "Maybe this was just good timing, but you never have that in your own hands. In fact, I think we always missed a bit of timing before and now at least that seems to be with us."

Although De Vries already has two titles under his belt in various classes of open-wheel racing, it never came to Formula 1. Currently, the Dutchman is 27 and at a possible debut of a full F1 season, he will be 28. That is probably what the Dutchman is referring to when he says the timing has not always worked out. According to De Vries, the fact that the timing does come along now just doesn't change much: "On the other hand, I don't think Monza makes the difference either. In the end, it is not up to me to decide who is in the car. Besides, the season was already in full swing."