Formula 1: Daniil Kvyat tipped to drive for Toro Rosso in 2019

With Scuderia Toro Rosso yet to fill either one of their two seats for the 2019 Formula 1 season, Daniil Kvyat has been tipped to return to the team.

Daniil Kvyat’s Formula 1 career began in the 2013 season when he became a test driver for Scuderia Toro Rosso. He ended up landing a full-time ride with the Red Bull Racing junior team in the 2014 season. After the 2014 season, he was promoted to drive for Red Bull Racing.

Kvyat spent the entirety of the 2015 season driving for Red Bull Racing and secured a career-high second place finish in the Hungarian Grand Prix along with four other top five finishes en route to a career-high seventh place finish in the driver standings.

However, after the fourth race of the 2016 season, the Russian was replaced by 18-year-old Max Verstappen and sent back to Toro Rosso. He drove for the Italian team for the remainder of the 2016 season and much of the 2017 season.

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But after the 14th race of the 2017 season, Kvyat made only one more start before the season reached its conclusion. He was replaced by Pierre Gasly and only made this one additional start because of the fact that Gasly had to be in Suzuka, Japan for two Japanese Super Formula races, which ended up being canceled.

But even with all of this in mind, is there a chance that the 24-year-old will return to the Italian team in the 2019 season?

It is unlikely that either of the team’s two current drivers will return to the team next season. In fact, Gasly is set to replace Daniel Ricciardo at Red Bull Racing next year, and this move has already been confirmed.

As far as Toro Rosso’s other driver, Brendon Hartley, is concerned, he has not demonstrated that he has what it takes to driver in Formula 1. He has scored just two points this season as a result of his two 10th place finishes, and he sits in 19th place out of 20 drivers in the standings. He, like Gasly, began driving for the team toward the end of last season, yet Gasly has outperformed him by an extremely wide margin through the first 15 races of this season.

Toro Rosso have plenty of options as far as which drivers they can sign for the 2019 season, and Kvyat is just one of them. However, even though they let go of him before the 2017 season ended, he is their most likely option at this point.

In fact, Kvyat has been tipped sign with Toro Rosso as one of their two drivers for next season, and the confirmation of this deal is expected to come at this weekend’s Russian Grand Prix. The fact that they will not be confirming their second driver at this time and the fact that there is evidently no hurry to do so effectively means that their announcement regarding their first driver is strategically being done this weekend because of the fact that the Russian Grand Prix is Kvyat’s home race.

Here is what Red Bull Racing team advisor Helmut Marko had to say about the matter, according to Wheels24.

"“We are currently planning to announce one driver in Sochi. It’s important to get one driver contract done quickly. There is not such a hurry to fill the other cockpit. We can even wait until winter testing.”"

Of Kvyat’s 72 career Formula 1 starts, 51 have take place while he was driving Toro Rosso. He racked up 11 top 10 finishes in those 51 races, and his top finishes were ninth place finishes. He recorded six ninth place finishes and five 10th place finishes as a Toro Rosso driver.

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Will Daniil Kvyat sign with Toro Rosso for the 2019 Formula 1 season? If so, will he have more success than he had in past seasons driving for the team in his return?

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