Kvyat needs his confidence back - Tost

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Toro Rosso team principal Franz Tost says Daniil Kvyat needs to get his confidence back to prove himself worthy of an F1 future.

Kvyat was demoted from Red Bull to Toro Rosso ahead of the Spanish Grand Prix and has yet to enjoy a clean weekend, but showed an improvement in Baku where he started from sixth on the grid. Speaking at the FIA Sport Conference in Turin, Tost admits Kvyat is in the shop window as well as trying to prove himself to Red Bull.

“Yeah it’s a little bit of a strange situation but then on the other hand he must be very happy that Red Bull has two teams because otherwise he would be out of Formula One, at least this year because all the other teams are full or have contracts with their drivers,” Tost said.

“Now I think he sees it quite realistically and I expect also from the second half of the season that our car is really competitive because the car is really good, although we have last year’s engine. Nevertheless he can do a good job and people see that he is a talented and highly-skilled driver, and that’s important. And that he gets back the confidence.”

And Tost - who has said he would like to see Kvyat retained by Toro Rosso - revealed he felt the young Russian has taken a while to compose himself since the team change.

“At the beginning he was quite shocked but I think he is now back to his good mood which he had before. We had a lot of meetings together, discussions together, and I hope that Toro Rosso can provide him with all the ingredients he needs to feel well and to come up with a good performance.

“First of all we have to give him a good and competitive car because we all know Daniil is a very, very fast and highly-skilled driver and I expect good results from him because he can do it. I know it.”

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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.