De Vries assesses chances at AlphaTauri: "That's going to be crucial"

Nyck de Vries is happy with how his weekend is going so far, but only qualifying on Saturday will show how well AlphaTauri is doing. At the same time, the Dutchman realises all too well that it is all about race pace at the Bahrain International Circuit.

As for qualifying, everything comes down to that one moment. "We have a good feeling about it and we are in good shape, but at the same time the moment is going to be crucial. The moment in qualifying to get everything together in that one lap and get the most out of our package," De Vries said in a conversation with Viaplay. "That's going to be crucial."

Long runs important in Bahrain

On Sunday, then, the priorities are very different. "The race is going to be a very different story because long runs are very difficult here, you have a lot of degradation and that has a very big impact on the performance in your race," the AlphaTauri driver continues.

The focus is therefore mainly on long runs and race performance. "Overtaking is easy here, so I think qualifying is less important here than perhaps on other tracks," De Vries concludes.