Nyck de Vries has criticised his own performance in the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, with the Dutchman feeling that he "needs to do better" in certain scenarios. The AlphaTauri driver lined up 18th on the grid for the race and ended the event in 14th, though was able to get involved in some on-track battles in the latter stages. De Vries feels that he did not perform strongly enough at the start of the Grand Prix, as well as during the Safety Car restart later on in proceedings.
De Vries: I was too conservative at race start
"I'm personally not satisfied with my own job at the start of the race, nor the Safety Car restart," de Vries told media, including RacingNews365.com . "I think I was not attacking enough and a bit too conservative. It was hard for me to judge the balance between managing the tyres and obviously pushing, and at this track it appeared to be almost not part of the equation – you could almost push flat out. "I was just too conservative [at the beginning] and then you lose one position, you're a little bit on the backfoot and then you're stuck in a DRS train and find yourself stuck in traffic. "You need to wait a long time before the train breaks up and then you can start to race and attack, and I think I just didn't do a good enough job there. "At the end of the race, the last 12 laps when I was caching Zhou [Guanyu], it was literally just qualifying laps every lap. I felt the pace was decent in that phase and I was catching Zhou, but when you get within that 1.5 seconds, you immediately feel the dirty air and you run against the wall. "It really shows how important those race start scenarios are to make the ground, to settle in your position and have the track position."
More to learn, says de Vries
With teammate Yuki Tsunoda seemingly gaining more during the Safety Car period, de Vries admits that he wants to focus on performing better in those scenarios himself. "I think he gained a little bit more ground, because I think he was in P9, so position-wise he gained a bit more," de Vries said. "But that's fine. That's part of the racing. [I'm] not sure whether it was at the right or wrong time, but I take it as it comes and it's part of the racing. "I look at myself and I think I need to do those start of race scenarios a bit better." While de Vries is open about where he feels he needs to improve, the 28-year-old also believes that he made progress between Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. "You've got to be honest and look at the whole picture," he added. "[Before qualifying] we were discussing fighting for Q2, but then when I did my personal analysis, I'm thinking, 'If you actually take the car pace, we probably didn't really deserve to be in Q2'. "We just need a little extra push to be a bit more in the midfield, and then capitalize on others' mistakes. But I feel like I'm personally progressing. I felt definitely stronger than [in] Bahrain and a bit more comfortable. "But I have a bit more learning to do."
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