Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsRed Bull Racing

Kvyat ‘can be the surprise of this year’ - Horner

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Red Bull team principal Christian Horner believes Daniil Kvyat can emulate team-mate Daniel Ricciardo in 2015.

Ricciardo moved up from Toro Rosso to Red Bull last year and proceeded to outperform four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel, taking three victories in the process. With Kvyat following in Ricciardo’s footsteps as he replaces Vettel – who has moved to Ferrari – Horner says he is prepared for the 20-year-old Russian to make errors in only his second season of F1 but believes he can surprise onlookers as much as Ricciardo did last year.

“I think in Kvyat we’ve got a really fast, determined, intelligent driver,” Horner said. “Sure, he’s a little bit rough around the edges – he’s only done 19 grands prix so far – but his commitment, speed and application are excellent. I envisage there will be the odd mistake here or there but that’s natural in a young driver on the trajectory that he’s on.

“I really think he can be the surprise of this year in the same way that Daniel was last year. He has all the right attributes to do some really fantastic things this year.”

Kvyat himself says he won’t set any firm targets for 2015 despite acknowledging he is likely to be driving a car capable of challenging for race wins once again.

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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.