Nyck de Vries will make his full-time Formula 1 debut at AlphaTauri this year. The Dutchman will have to convince his new team, as well as Helmut Marko, to remain assured of a seat in the top sport. Christijan Albers expects De Vries to easily beat his teammate Yuki Tsunoda.

After his blistering debut at Monza 2022, where De Vries managed to score two points for Williams as Alexander Albon's replacement, the Dutchman convinced Marko and AlphaTauri of his talent. De Vries will replace the departing Pierre Gasly next season and will take a seat alongside Tsunoda.

"If he doesn't beat Yuki, then he has a problem," Albers states in the Formula 1 podcast New Year's Special of The Telegraph. Although Tsunoda already performed a lot better in the second half of the season than his first year in F1, Albers is not convinced of the Japanese driver's talent.

Criticism of Tsunoda

"The problem with Yuki is that at a certain point he 'overdrives'. Then he gets so anxious that you lose the performance all at once, because he starts holding back and is a lot slower. He goes really fast, then he retaliates. Then you notice that he just drops back all at once and he is too cautious," the Dutch analyst continued.

2023 will be an important year for De Vries, as he will have to convince Marko, who has a tough approach when it comes to his drivers, that he deserves a place in F1 at AlphaTauri. In any case, Albers expects the 27-year-old driver to beat Tsunoda easily. "If you then really start looking in terms of performance and in terms of talent, Nyck should just be able to beat him really easily," he said.