Nyck de Vries said he was rejected four times by Formula 1 teams before the sudden scramble for his signature following his eye-catching debut.
The Dutchman holds a race seat in F1 for the first time and will make his AlphaTauri debut this season, after his 28th birthday. It has been a long time coming for a man who looked a shoo-in for a seat in the premier single seater class after romping to the Formula 2 title in 2019.
But the call never came. As has become a theme in recent times with F2 champions, there was no space in F1 for De Vries. Instead he moved to Formula E with Mercedes where he competed for the next three seasons alongside former McLaren man Stoffel Vandoorne.