Nyck de Vries has conceded he is in the dark over the cause of his Azerbaijan Grand Prix qualifying crash. The AlphaTauri driver will start last on the grid at the Baku City Circuit after locking up into Turn 3 and running straight on into the barriers, causing a lengthy red-flag delay. De Vries had been wheeled back into the garage prior to the session commencing with what was an apparent brake-by-wire issue, though there is no indication as yet that a similar issue led to the Dutchman’s incident. The result was especially frustrating given teammate Yuki Tsunoda’s run to Q3 underlining the improvement found by the Faenza-based team across the spring break. “It is certainly very disappointing,” de Vries told media, including RacingNews365.com . “The car and the package looks really competitive this weekend, we had a good practice session so we hoped to be able to capitalise on that. “Unfortunately, it ended prematurely in Q1 and we were not able to capitalise on the performance we seem to have.” De Vries revealed he was not willing to rush into a conclusion on the cause of his incident having been left unable to return to the pits following his crash. His isolation mirrors a similar issue experienced by Haas driver Kevin Magnussen at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix last season – ironically the last sprint event before this weekend. “Honestly, I don’t exactly know what happened [in the crash],” de Vries added. “I think the issues pre-session were obvious but I don’t like to make conclusions without seeing what happened. “Tomorrow is a new day so we will try to capitalise on our performance. I don’t want to suspect anything. I waited one hour or more outside the track in a car so before making conclusions, I want to see what happened.”
Source: Read More