I had potential to win with Red Bull - Kvyat

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Daniil Kvyat says Max Verstappen's victory in the Spanish Grand Prix shows he also had the potential to win for Red Bull.

Verstappen was promoted in place of Kvyat last week and duly took a stunning victory on his debut for the team, holding off Kimi Raikkonen for half of the race. Asked if Verstappen's victory feels like a win that got away for him, Kvyat replied: "I don’t care to be honest.

"I’m now doing my own job with my own new car. Of course it makes me think that I had the potential to do it, of course, no doubt. It just shows that we have the potential to do it, simple as that."

Kvyat himself finished tenth to score a point on his return to Toro Rosso, and believes the second half of the race showed some of his potential.

“I think plenty of positives, the second half of the race was very competitive. Plenty of positives to pick up … a good race. In the end we had a strong pace, we could have got a lot more points probably without being lapped. The first half of the race was a bit difficult, we lost some time, but then once we got in clean air it was all very competitive so I’m very happy.”

Explaining why the first half of the race was not as strong, Kvyat said he lost out on the opening lap.

“I have no confidence on the brakes, with a new car it’s always very difficult. I broke quite early [for Turn 1] and of course they overtook me. Then I was always boxed in between cars … just bad luck on the first lap. Then I had to give two positions back after the safety car which didn’t help at all, we lost a lot of time there. Generally it made our race difficult so it’s another few points which we lost. But it was still a positive race.”

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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.