Formula 1: 5 candidates to drive for Red Bull Racing in 2020
By Asher Fair
Daniil Kvyat
Daniil Kvyat has done an exceptional job in his return season to Formula 1 after he was demoted from Red Bull Racing to Toro Rosso during the 2016 season when Max Verstappen was promoted and after he was cut from Toro Rosso before the 2017 season ended, ironically in favor of Pierre Gasly.
But aside of a few incidents late in his tenure driving for Red Bull Racing, he really didn’t perform all that poorly, and many people still feel that he was given a raw deal when Verstappen replaced him after just four races in the 2016 season.
In his first and only full season driving for Red Bull Racing in 2015, the 25-year-old Russian finished ahead of Daniel Ricciardo in the driver standings despite the fact that he missed the season-opening Australian Grand Prix. Ricciardo had just handily beaten four-time reigning champion Sebastian Vettel in the standings as his teammate the previous year.
Kvyat recorded a career-high second place finish in the Hungarian Grand Prix and only finished outside of the top 10 in four of the 2015 season’s 19 races, and he finished the season in seventh in the driver standings with 95 points ahead of Ricciardo in eighth with 92.
In his return to Formula 1 this season, Kvyat has already recorded only the second podium in Toro Rosso’s 14-year history with his third place finish in the German Grand Prix at the end of July, a race in which he was running in second late before he was passed by Vettel, who recorded Toro Rosso’s first podium finish with his first career victory in the 2008 season.
When Helmut Marko was asked if Kvyat’s improvement in form was putting Pierre Gasly under pressure, he replied with one word: “Sure.”