Red Bull driver to be south

F1 rookie and Red Bull driver for the Alpha Tauri team, Nyck de Vries gets summary proceedings with property tycoon over €250,000 loan, a court date set for liable action against the Dutch Formula 1 driver.

AlphaTauri Formula 1 driver Nyck de Vries is facing a lawsuit from a Dutch real estate tycoon over a €250,000 loan he used to support his junior career. The lender is seeking a return on the loan that de Vries is unwilling to honor.

De Vries will race full-time in F1 this year with AlphaTauri after being signed as Pierre Gasly’s replacement. De Vries came into the picture for the F1 seat after impressing on a late call to replace the sick Alex Albon at Monza. The Dutchman finished ninth there for Williams last year.

But de Vries is now being sued through the Dutch courts by Jeroen Schothorst, who claims the AlphaTauri driver withheld information and breached agreements regarding a 2018 loan deal.

According to Dutch newspaper FD, De Vries took out a €250,000 loan from Jeroen Schothorst’s investment company to secure an F2 seat at Prema in 2018.

The deal would charge 3% interest per annum, as well as a cut of future income from F1 activities. It also stated that the loan would be waived if De Vries was not an F1 driver in 2022. De Vries paid €190,000 in interest to Schothorst, but since he did not have an F1 deal for 2022, he assumed the loan would be written off according to the agreement.

But Schothorst claimed in court last Tuesday that De Vries had failed to provide the required information about his earnings and contracts during the term of the loan and is now asking for those details, including those relating to his AlphaTauri F1 deal.