Nyck de Vries: Formula E Champion, Formula 2 Title Winner and Le Mans Victor

Nyck de Vries is a Dutch racing driver from Friesland who won the 2020-21 Formula E World Championship with Mercedes-EQ and the 2019 FIA Formula 2 title with ART Grand Prix. He contested 11 Formula One Grands Prix in 2022 and 2023 before moving into endurance racing, and he won the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2026 with Toyota.

Who is Nyck de Vries?

Hendrik Johannes Nicasius de Vries, known as Nyck, was born on 6 February 1995 in Uitwellingerga, Friesland. He races for Mahindra in Formula E and for Toyota in the FIA World Endurance Championship, and his family has partial Indonesian roots.

His grandfather came from Malang in East Java, and Nyck was raised in Friesland. He began competitive kart racing at the age of nine, and his career then passed through single-seaters, GP3, Formula 2 and Formula One before the sportscar programmes that followed.

Major teams noticed him early. He was in the McLaren Young Driver Programme from 2010 to 2019 and in the Audi Sport Racing Academy from 2016, and he later became a test and reserve driver for several Formula One teams.

From Frisian karting to a Le Mans win, a career built across single-seaters, Formula E and Toyota's Hypercar programme.

How did his karting career go?

De Vries began karting aged nine and won the WSK World Series KF3 title in 2008. He retained that and the German Junior Championship a year later, took the European KF3 crown, and won the Karting World Championship in 2010 and again in 2011.

Those results gave him a reputation that carried into single-seaters. In 2012 R-ace GP gave him a cockpit in the Eurocup Formula Renault 2.0, and he finished fifth overall in his first season, beating all of his teammates.

He scored a second place in his debut race at Alcaniz, repeated the result at the Hungaroring and took a win at his home track of Assen in the North European Cup. He finished tenth in that series' standings after four podiums in eleven starts.

What did the Formula Renault seasons deliver?

De Vries moved to Koiranen GP for 2013 and 2014. He won the 2014 Eurocup title with six wins and 254 points, and he took ten wins from fourteen races in the Alpine Formula Renault series that same year.

In 2013 he won once at the Hungaroring and once at Catalunya, and he again ended the season fifth in the championship. The 2014 Eurocup was more convincing still: he beat runner-up Dennis Olsen comfortably, 254 points to 124.

In 2015 he moved up to the Formula Renault 3.5 Series with DAMS. He was on the podium five times and won the final race at the Circuito de Jerez, which put him third in the championship on 160 points behind Oliver Rowland and Matthieu Vaxiviere.

How did GP3 and Formula 2 shape his career?

De Vries joined ART Grand Prix for the 2016 GP3 Series, winning twice and finishing sixth overall. He then moved into Formula 2 in 2017 and won the 2019 title with ART after a season of four victories.

In GP3 his first podium came at the Red Bull Ring, followed by a first pole at Budapest. His first win came in the second race at Monza, and he repeated it at Yas Marina at the end of the year. His teammates Charles Leclerc and Alexander Albon finished first and second in the championship.

In 2017 he switched to Rapax and won the Monte Carlo sprint race. Before Spa he moved to Racing Engineering, finishing second there, and he ended his rookie year seventh overall, the second-highest placed rookie.

For 2018 he joined Prema and partnered Sean Gelael. Two podiums in the first third of the season left him behind the title contenders, but he recovered with a sprint win at Le Castellet and feature wins in Hungary and Belgium. He finished behind Albon, Lando Norris and George Russell.

In 2019 he returned to ART alongside Nikita Mazepin. He won a sprint race at Barcelona, took pole and won the feature at Monaco, then moved to the top of the standings by winning the feature at Le Castellet. He was crowned champion at Sochi, the penultimate round, after his fourth and final win of the season.

What was his path into sportscars and Toyota?

De Vries signed for Racing Team Nederland in the LMP2 class of the World Endurance Championship in March 2018. He won the 6 Hours of Fuji with the team in 2019-20, which gave Racing Team Nederland its first win in the series.

He became a Toyota test and reserve driver in July 2020, with roles that included testing the TS050 Hybrid and Toyota's hypercar. That year he also raced three rounds of the European Le Mans Series with G-Drive, scoring a podium and a fastest lap at Le Castellet, plus a win in the season finale at the Algarve.

During the test week before the 2022 Le Mans, the ACO prevented a driver from starting, and de Vries, who was already at the circuit as a reserve, stepped in. He finished fourth in class with Mathias Beche and Tijmen van der Helm, and he set the fastest top-20 average lap.

In November 2023 Toyota named him as a primary driver of the No. 7 Hypercar, replacing Jose Maria Lopez. He qualified second for the season-opening race in Qatar and took his first overall WEC victory at Imola, profiting from a strong stint by veteran teammate Kamui Kobayashi.

He then finished second overall at Le Mans, his first podium there. He went on to win Le Mans outright in 2026 for Toyota.

How did his Formula E title come about?

De Vries joined Mercedes-EQ in late 2019 and won the 2020-21 championship with two wins, four podiums and 99 points. He finished seven points ahead of Edoardo Mortara, taking the title with eighth place in the final Berlin race.

His first win in the series came in the opening Diriyah ePrix of 2020-21, after he took pole and led every lap. He added a second victory at Valencia, where he was one of the few drivers who did not run out of usable energy before the end.

Two second places at London gave him the lead of the championship before the finale. In Berlin he qualified 13th and was helped when title rivals Mitch Evans and Mortara collided at the start, and he finished eighth.

Teammate Stoffel Vandoorne finished ninth in the standings, and Mercedes won its first Teams' Championship that season. In 2021-22 the pair raced for Mercedes' final Formula E season. De Vries won the opening race at Diriyah and took pole the next day, but he finished ninth overall with 106 points.

What happened in his Formula One spell?

De Vries made his Formula One race debut at the 2022 Italian Grand Prix as a substitute for Alexander Albon at Williams, and he scored points on debut by finishing ninth. He then raced for AlphaTauri in 2023 but was released after the British Grand Prix, with Daniel Ricciardo taking his seat.

Before that race debut he had been a Mercedes reserve for 2021 and had taken part in a Young Driver Test for the team in December 2020. In 2022 he also drove practice sessions for Williams at Spain, for Mercedes in France and Mexico City, and for Aston Martin in Italy.

At Monza he qualified 13th, ahead of teammate Nicholas Latifi, and started eighth after penalties for others. Fans voted him Driver of the Day.

AlphaTauri signed him to replace Pierre Gasly, who had left for Alpine. He qualified 19th and finished 14th in Bahrain, and he reached Q2 for the first time at Australia, where he was classified 15th after a chaotic race. He retired at Azerbaijan after clipping the wall, and at Miami he ran into the back of Lando Norris at the start.

Ten races into the year he had no points, while teammate Yuki Tsunoda had scored two. Helmut Marko, Red Bull's motorsport adviser, criticised his form publicly. Several Dutch and Formula E drivers criticised the decision, but AlphaTauri released him two days after Silverstone.

How has his Formula E career developed since?

After Mercedes, de Vries joined Mahindra for 2023-24 alongside Edoardo Mortara. He missed the Berlin ePrix in 2024-25 because of a clash with a WEC round, and he was replaced by Felipe Drugovich.

In 2024-25 he finished second at Monaco and then second in both London races. In 2025-26 he won at Monaco, his first ePrix victory since Berlin 2022, and then finished third at Sanya.

He and Mortara continued with Mahindra heading into the Gen4 era for 2026-27.

Did he race beyond Formula One and Formula E?

Yes. De Vries tested an IndyCar with Meyer Shank Racing at Sebring in December 2021, set the fastest times, and made his Super Formula debut with Team Impul in 2024. He also won races for G-Drive in the European Le Mans Series in 2020 and 2021.

The IndyCar test ran alongside Stoffel Vandoorne, who was testing for Arrow McLaren SP that day. Four-time Indianapolis 500 winner Helio Castroneves helped him get used to the Dallara DW12, and de Vries was quickest among the four drivers in the test.

In 2024 he took part in two of the final three rounds, at Motegi and Fuji Speedway, which was his first start in the Japanese series. He raced for Team Impul on both weekends.

What do his results look like across each series?