Daniil Kvyat says he enjoyed a “good” first pre-season test but the Russian now plans on setting up the new Red Bull RB12 more to his liking.
The 21-year-old took over from team-mate Daniel Ricciardo for the final two days of the opening group session and ended up clocking up 170 laps in Milton Keynes’ latest challenger with the sixth fastest time on aggregate.
“I’ve had two good test days even though I would have liked to do more laps. There are two more test days, so I will try to extract the maximum out of them,” Kvyat said.
“I will try to personalise the car a little bit more and figure out where we can make more steps forward and develop the car for the first race. Even at the first race we will continue to understand the car and continue to improve the performance.”
Kvyat was one of the four drivers given the opportunity to sample Pirelli’ new ultrasoft tyre, with Ferrari and Red Bull the only teams running on the purple-marked rubber this week at the Spanish Grand Prix venue.
Asked to comment on his first impressions about the compound, which will make its grand prix debut in Canada, the former GP3 Series champion replied:
“It is a tyre that is one of the fastest compounds and under certain circumstances it will be good, like street circuits. It was interesting to try it for the first time but there is nothing else I can tell you.
“It is a soft tyre, good grip but something similar, it is normal and has a similar behaviour to the super-softs but nothing much different. It will be a step forward at street circuits.”
The second and final pre-season test also takes place at Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya from March 1-4.
A closer look at the Red Bull RB12
Scene at the first pre-season test
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