Daniil Kvyat's dramatic crash in Sunday's British Grand Prix was caused by a sudden puncture according to analysis of onboard footage of the AlphaTauri smash.
In the first part of the race, the Russian was fighting just outside the top-ten and following his teammate Pierre Gasly into the high-speed Maggotts and Becketts complex, when Kvyat's car brutally swiped ends upon the entry to the section.
The AlphaTauri hit hard the outside wall but fortunately sparing its driver from injury.
Kvyat was apologetic to his team for the mishap on the radio, but Sky F1's Martin Brundle immediately dismissed a driver error and suggested the crash had been caused by a failure of the AlphaTauri's right-rear tyre or wheel.
"I thought it was my fault, as at first I always tend to blame myself," said Kvyat after the race.
"But after reviewing the video we saw that something happened out of my control, so we will need to check all the data to understand what exactly caused the failure."
A frame-by-frame analysis of the AT01's onboard rear-view footage posted on social media clearly indicates a puncture and the right-rear tyre's disintegration.
To all those "torpedo" commentators. pic.twitter.com/dJvAPI4OSQ
— Oleg Karpov (@OlegKarpov) August 3, 2020
Kvyat was thus the first of four drivers to suffer a tyre failure in Sunday's race, with Valtteri Bottas, Carlos Sainz and race winner Lewis Hamilton all suffering failures, although those three incidents occurred in the closing stages of the race and involved the left-front tyre.
Pirelli has opened an urgent investigation into the failures in order to determine their cause and eventually call into question next weekend's softer compound selection for the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix to be held at Silverstone.
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