Design: Nyck de Vries, World Champion

The 2020/2021 Formula E season was a blast. Not just because it was one of the closest fights for the championship title, but also because it saw Nyck de Vries clench it in the final race. This means that Nyck de Vries became the first Dutchman to become an official (non-karting) FIA world champion.

As a tribute, I made a design commemorating this fact. Before showing you the end result, I will briefly talk about my “relation” to Nyck (i.e., as a spectator and motorsports fan) and show some of the work that went into the design. The design itself is also up on my redbubble-account if you want to buy prints. There are, however, free desktop wallpapers for you to grab at the bottom so make sure to grab your copy!

Watching Nyck

I’ve been following Nyck’s career ever since he won the 2008 WSK World Series KF3 karting championship at just 13 years. Not much later, he became a McLaren junior. He even made an appearance in McLaren’s ‘Tooned’ series in 2012 as a still squeaky 17 y/o.

Unfortunately for him, his junior career wasn’t as spectacular as for instance Max Verstappen, Lando Norris, and George Russell. Though he did win his fair share of events and series (culminating in his Formula 2 championship win in 2019), this lack of momentum made him lose his shot at a proper Formula 1 seat.

Instead, he opted to sign with Mercedes for a Formula E seat, culminating in his series victory in only his second season in the sport!

Nyck de Vries celebrating in Berlin, 2021 (picture: Formula E, via Racefans.net)

Making the design

Before finishing my Formula E(lectric) Drift design, I was already planning to create a version of it paying hommage to Nyck’s championship win. This meant I had to rework large parts of the car into the Gen 2 design, as the other design was based on the ill-fated Gen 2 evo iteration.

This involved reworking the front and rear wheel arches, as well as reworking parts of the air-box (dropping the fin) and rear wing. I also slightly changed a couple of things I wasn’t happy with, and added a few features I had previously overlooked, such as the lack of mirrors. To top all of it off, I added a little bit of gradient shadows to add some more dynamic lighting-effects to the car.

You can view the differences in the pictures below.

Gen 2 Evo design
Gen 2 design

In order to make it a proper hommage, I needed to put in references to Nyck and the Mercedes team he drives for. Not only did I add a giant portrait of Nyck I also added a background featuring the team’s colours. And of course, I added a (dressed-down version of) the livery. As well as some personalized touches, including his helmet and driving number.

The Design: Nyck de Vries, World Champion

Nyck de Vries, World Champion

Redbubble

Like many of my designs, this one too can be found on my Redbubble storefront! See below for some previews to articles which I personally think look rather cool!

There are many other products available. Check them out!

Phone & Desktop wallpapers

As promised, a few free wallpapers for you to enjoy. Click on the description to open for full-sized versions!

Feedback

Let me know what you think in the comments below. If you’d rather see it in a different colour, I might be able to make a variant (and upload it to Redbubble). If you want to know more about the quality of Redbubble’s products, I bought and reviewed a previous design of mine. You can read my experiences here.

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2 Responses

  1. January 20, 2022

    […] the first big series to do so for their 2022 series. After a scorching 2021 season, which saw Nyck de Vries clinch the title in the final race, the teams are getting ready to bid farewell to the Gen 2 cars in their final […]

  2. April 5, 2022

    […] now, Nyck is the reigning Formula E champion (for which I drew a special illustration) and yet I am still hesitant to cheer for Mercedes. But at least now I (and you!) can look good […]

Please, let me know what you think!