McLaren agrees to reserve Paul di Resta

Indeed, the McLaren team would like to use Paul di Resta as a driver to offset any potential unavailability of the Mercedes Formula E drivers Nyck de Vries and Stoffel Vandoorne. The latter are the official reserved drivers of the factory team, namely Mercedes, and can also be called upon, if necessary, by McLaren. Both drivers have a history with the British team, with Stoffel Vandoorne serving as a test driver at McLaren from 2014 to 2016 and then being promoted to a full-time driver in 2017 and 2018. As for Nyck de Vries, he was part of McLaren’s young driver program from 2010 to the end of 2018.

However, Stoffel Vandoorne and Nyck de Vries are both racing for Mercedes in Formula E, which can sometimes create scheduling conflicts. During certain weekends, neither of the two men will be available as reserves, representing a major issue for McLaren. They have therefore decided to call upon Paul di Resta, who is now a commentator for Sky F1 and who was a reserve driver during the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix in 2020 at Silverstone. He is a former driver from 2010 to 2013 for the Force India team, which has undergone many changes in recent years and is now known as Aston Martin.

The director of the McLaren team, Andreas Seidl, explains in more detail the stakes of this agreement.

Our main objective is this agreement we have with Mercedes.

Translate: « As you also know with what we would have had in place last year at Silverstone, we also have a good relationship with Paul di Resta, who also holds a super license. »

We have an agreement with him so that we can intervene if the need arises. We are therefore prepared for different scenarios.

« We are prepared for various scenarios »

Vandoorne and de Vries will take turns as reserves at Mercedes, which will determine who will potentially be available for McLaren. For example, Vandoorne is on standby for Imola this weekend, even though he is not on site. These alternations in availability require good communication and collaboration between Mercedes and McLaren to ensure that each team has a reserve driver at every Grand Prix. This is what Andreas Seidl stated: « It is obviously something that we will have to do together with Mercedes, depending on who is actually on standby for Mercedes for the specific weekend. »

Nico Hülkenberg, former Formula 1 driver from 2010 to 2019 and winner of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, made three notable appearances last year as a reserve driver for the former Racing Point team. Although Aston Martin recently confirmed that they will be able to call on Hülkenberg again, the question of whether the German was also an option for McLaren was logically raised. Andreas Seidl responded, “Once again, in the end, we depend on Mercedes. We just have to follow what Mercedes puts in place for the different weekends. But our main concern is clearly Stoffel and Nyck.”

« We depend on Mercedes »