Kvyat laughs off memories of 2016's Sochi clash

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This time last year, Daniil Kvyat was still a Red Bull driver as he headed to the 2016 Russian Grand Prix.

But a disastrous start to the race saw him run into the back of Sebastian Vettel's Ferrari and changed all that. He'd already had a run-in with Vettel at the previous race in China, and this latest incident was the final straw for team bosses.

This week Kvyat returns to the scene of the 'crime' that saw him demoted back to the Toro Rosso squad for the rest of 2016. Kvyat says he is over the trauma of those events, and finally able to laugh about what happened.

"The first thing that comes to my mind when I think about Russia is Sebastian," he said this week. "As in Sebastian Vettel.

"I like to torpedo Sebastian, it's my hobby!" he said, deadpan, before breaking out into a smile. "Okay, c'mon, you all know I'm joking!"

"Let's get serious now," he continued. "Maybe the first word that comes to mind should be ‘braking’ into Turn 1."

Despite the events of 12 months ago, Kvyat is understandably nothing but positive about his home race.

"This is always a special weekend for me," he confirmed. "I've had very good qualifyings there. But I've never actually been able to put the perfect race together in Russia. I'd like to achieve it this year.

"In 2015 I qualified in P5, which was my best qualifying result with Toro Rosso. It was quite a nice moment. I have very good memories from that day.

"The race wasn't great, but then the following year the situation was the opposite. Not the strongest of qualifications, but with a decent race. This time I'm looking to be strong on both Saturday and Sunday."

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Formula 1 has only visited Russia twice so far, but Kvyat said it was already clear how the event was quickly taking root in Sochi.

"Since the first Russian GP back in 2014, Formula 1 in Russia has definitely grown a lot," he pointed out.

"To have our own race was a big step for the country/ More and more fans attend every year. You can see that the interest in the sport is much bigger."

"It's so cool to race here," he added. "I always feel the strong support of the Russian fans.

"I want to make the most out of this backing and thank everyone with a strong performance."

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.