Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsRed Bull Racing

Kvyat expects to hit the ground running in second season

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Daniil Kvyat expects to be able to hit the ground running in his second season at Red Bull after a slow start last year.

The Russian driver struggled in the opening five races of his first season after being promoted from Toro Rosso, before showing an upturn in form from the Monaco Grand Prix onwards. With Red Bull also having trouble with its chassis early on, Kvyat believes his year of experience with the team will clearly help him in 2016.

“I feel last year Danny [Ricciardo] knew the team well, which helped him at the beginning of a tough season," Kvyat said. “For me it was all very, very hard at the start. I didn’t know what kind of roles the people had in the team.

“But now when I go to the factory, or when I’ll be going to the track, everything will be more familiar, things will become automatic. I won’t have to waste time thinking ‘What should I do?’, or who I should ask to do this and that.

“All the people around me know what to do and it automatically makes things easier.”

Asked if settling in to the team was holding him back at the start of 2015, Kvyat replied: “In the beginning, yes, but in the end what you have to do is be as confident as you can with the car.

“The tests, the first few races were very tricky, so it took me a while. But then things looked a lot more promising, and now we are ready to have a nice clean winter testing and start races a lot more prepared than we were last year.”

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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.