On the back of a first lap crash that could be blamed on either of the Toro Rosso drivers, the internet has exploded with fans calling for Daniil Kvyat to be dropped from Toro Rosso in 2018. Kvyat was driver with a lot of potential, but I think that he’s skating on thin ice at Toro Rosso.
There was nothing particularly special about his performance at Toro Rosso for his first Formula One season in 2014. He managed to score some points, but his teammate Jean-Eric Vergne managed to score almost three times more points than the Russian. It wasn’t really a shock, considering Vergne had already spent three seasons with the team.
The shock came when Sebastian Vettel left Red Bull to join Ferrari. Since Toro Rosso is the feeder team for Red Bull, the replacement was surely going to be a Toro Rosso driver, with many expecting Vergne to take the seat due to the performance and experience advantage he had over his Toro Rosso counterpart. However, the Formula One world was shocked when the position was given to Kvyat and Vergne was dropped entirely.
Now, with just a single F1 season under his belt, Kvyat was expected to meet the expectations of a top-level team. He did so quite well in 2015, outperforming his teammate and even scoring a podium finish in Hungary. Despite his lack of experience, he was looking quite promising for the Red Bull team. But things changed in 2016.
The season started out decently for Kvyat. He didn’t start the first race in Australia, but he made up for it by scoring points in Bahrain and a podium in China. However, when he got to his home grand prix, his entire career fell apart. He made a clumsy mistake in turn two of the race and took out Vettel after multiple impacts. Two weeks later, Kvyat found himself dumped back to Toro Rosso, as Max Verstappen took his seat.
It was downhill from here, as he struggled to score points. Teammate Carlos Sainz was able to easily score more points, despite Kvyat’s two strong finishes with Red Bull earlier in the season. With only 4 points this season, 25 less than Sainz, it would appear that Kvyat is in line to finish far behind his teammate by the end of the 2017 season.
With no contract yet, Kvyat really needs to prove himself in order to maintain his seat at Toro Rosso, or at least some team for 2018. The problem is that Kvyat never really recovered from his accident in Russia in 2016 and he has been making amateurish mistakes ever since.
The question that everyone is asking is “Will Kvyat stay with Toro Rosso in 2018?” This is a difficult thing to predict. Of course you can say that his current form isn’t worthy of a contract, there’s often things behind the scenes that factor a decision like this. For example, sponsorship money.
I think that his performance before the 2016 Russian Grand Prix was extremely promising and he was a great candidate for the Red Bull swap. He has just been very unfortunate in his career. He was moved up the ranks too early due to Vettel’s team change and he had Verstappen looming over his Red Bull seat for nearly the entire time he was there. And you can argue that incidents at races like the 2016 Chinese Grand Prix and 2017 British Grand Prix were not his fault.
The only issue is that he is getting into collisions with highly influential drivers within the Red Bull camp. He has made contact with his teammate, which is enough to anger virtually any team. He has also made contact with Vettel, a driver with a lot of connections with the Red Bull garage. This is hurting his reputation within the team.
But the biggest factor, I think, that will prevent him from remaining with Toro Rosso in the future is that he has already raced for Red Bull. He has already had his shot with the big team, but in the team’s eyes he failed. How likely is it that he will get a second chance? Formula One is not a sport that gives many second chances.
The saddest part is that he for sure 100% had the potential to be a brilliant driver. We have witnessed far worse drivers pass through the ranks and actually stick around for a very long time. But I just can’t help but feel that the 2016 Russian Grand Prix was career ending blow to Kvyat.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any other agency, organization, employer or company. Assumptions made in any analysis contained within this article are not reflective of the position of any entity other than the author.
