Nyck de Vries says that he feels well supported in his current environment at Red Bull despite the struggles that have marked his rookie season in F1 so far.
Ahead of last weekend's Monaco Grand Prix, de Vries had never finished higher than 14th on race day, while his outings in Melbourne and in Baku were marred by crashes.
Last weekend, the Dutchman's clean race in the Principality didn't deliver any points, but the 28-year-old did achieve his best result when he crossed the finish line P12.
Perhaps more importantly, the performance earned de Vries praise from Red Bull's Helmut Marko.
"Nyck was much closer to Yuki [Tsunoda] than before," said the Austrian. "This was by far his best weekend. This is what I want to see from him."
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Marko's encouraging words will have likely boosted the spirits of a driver whose poor results year-to-date recently triggered rumors of his impending exit from F1.
"The team is behind me, and I have a good relationship with everybody," said de Vries in Monaco.
"I definitely feel very warmly welcomed and supported in my environment. It’s not really different than previously.
"You’re as good as your last race. If you would have asked the same question after Monza, everyone would have had a very different perception.
"Now that I’ve had a bit of a more difficult start of the season, then it becomes more relevant.
"I don’t really go in that much depth, it’s just, I don’t really go in that much depth. I made some mistakes, and that’s it."
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Looking back on his efforts in Monaco, de Vries took a positive view on a difficult race that he said unfolded in "very challenging circumstances".
"It was a solid race," he said. "The Intermediates initially didn’t have any temperature or grip, but we kept our nose clean.
"Overall, I am satisfied with my weekend, no major mistakes in tricky conditions.
"It was encouraging to see that we were so close to the top 10, and we worked well as a team throughout the weekend to put the cars where they were on the grid, so we’ll take those positives to Barcelona."
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