Nyck de Vries secured his third podium finish of the season at the Red Bull Ring in Austria, finishing third behind DAMS team-mate Dean Stoneman in race one, before following up with a fifth place in race two.
De Vries was disappointed following his fifth in race two, having run confidently in fourth place for two-thirds of the race before locking up his wheels and losing a place to International Draco Racing’s Pietro Fantin at turn two.
The McLaren F1 Junior driver moved into fifth place in the Formula Renault 3.5 Series championship as a result of his two top-five finishes, and felt the opening race of the weekend will provide much needed confidence boosts for the DAMS engineers and mechanics even if the second race did not go all to plan.
“I’m very pleased to give the team another top-three finish; it’s great for everybody’s morale,” said de Vries. “Overall the weekend was positive; we were quick and we turned our speed into points, at least in the first race.
“It’s a shame we ran into problems in the second but we can now prepare for the rest of the championship in a calmer frame of mind.”
