De Vries praises Mercedes progress: 'Hamilton drove a great race'

Nyck de Vries was present at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya to participate in the first free practice session with the Williams team. After the race, he noted that Mercedes have made great strides in solving the problems the team was facing.

He called the updates the team brought to Barcelona "very encouraging" after George Russell and Lewis Hamilton made it to third and fifth respectively. Hamilton could have potentially made things difficult for his teammate for the final podium spot, but an incident with Kevin Magnussen caused him to start from a hefty deficit.

De Vries regretted that Hamilton lost his position with that, but thought that the Briton put in a great race afterwards. "He drove an amazing race to come back from the back of the grid," said the Mercedes reserve driver at the Post Race Show on the YouTube-channel of Formula 1.

He also praised George Russell for his defensive work against Max Verstappen. "George did an equally incredible job to keep Max behind for so long, even if it was with a bit of help from the DRS," he continued.

As a result, De Vries thinks Mercedes can take a lot of positives from the weekend and hopes the team can build on this to move further forward on the grid.