After winning the GP3
title Kvyat was promoted
straight to F1 by Red Bull
FERRARO/LAT
so you have to come in and be at the top of your
game straight away.
“You try to see things which work better and
you have to try and understand why and make
them work in the same or a better way. It’s
early days, but I’m always here to do my best.
I was doing this last year, and now with Red
Bull I will do the same.”
Kvyat recognises he will have to begin again
in terms of learning a new team and the way
its people work, all while his team-mate
Ricciardo builds on the relationships that a
breezy, happy-go-lucky attitude out of the car
(combined with well-judged aggression inside
the cockpit) helped cement so quickly in 2014.
Kvyat is not Ricciardo. Indeed, their characters
are actually quite different, but that doesn’t
mean both cannot be equally effective operators.
“Daniil is very, very focused, very hungry,
he’s quite intense – he’s more probably like
Sebastian [Vettel] in that respect,” adds Horner.
“Whereas Daniel Ricciardo is a bit more laid
back out of the car – very happy-go-lucky. But
as soon as he puts the visor down that killer
instinct comes out in him.
“They’re different characters and I think it will
be a strong combination. It will be an exciting
combination, that’s for sure.”
Ricciardo’s advice for his new team-mate is to
focus as much as possible on his own game, and
not get distracted or “overwhelmed” by the
different environment of a top team.
“He’s in a similar position to me, but he’s just
younger, so I think he just has to do what got
him here in the first place, which is driving fast
– a bit like how I approached it last year,”
Ricciardo says. “We’ll see.
I’ll be kind to him, but at
the same time make life as
difficult as I can and be as
fast as I can on-track!
Hopefully it works out
well for both of us. We’ve
got on pretty well since
day one, so I’m pretty
happy to have him
alongside me this year.”
Ricciardo defined his
first season at Red Bull
by grabbing every
opportunity that came his
way, from that superb
drive to second (on the
road) in Melbourne – after
a disastrous pre-season
– to collecting the pieces
every time Mercedes
dropped the silverware in
front of him. It’s a sign of
the inner steel and self-confidence Kvyat
possesses that he already feels ready to do just
as well if similar chances are presented to him.
“Last year there was no way we could be
winning a race in ideal conditions, now we have
to see how it is here,” he says. “I don’t know how
it’s going to look like with Red Bull, if we will or
will not be capable. We will see.
“But once the opportunity comes you have to
grab it, and this is when you recognise a good or
an average driver. If he can bring it to the end,
yes he’s very good. But if not, then maybe there
is still some work to do, or he just cannot do it.
It’s all about getting there first.
“I have been winning in the past in my career
many times. It’s a new mental challenge, a new
challenge here in F1, but it all can happen. I don’t
see anything that can stop me if there’s going to
be the chance.”
Toro Rosso provided a
launchpad for Kvyat’s
Formula 1 career
HONE/LAT
“I’LL BE
KIND TO HIM,
BUT AT THE
SAME TIME
MAKE LIFE
DIFFICULT”
Red Bull’s place in the
2015 order hinges on
Renault’s power unit
DANIEL RICCIARDO
48 AUTOSPORT.COM MARCH 5 2015
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impressive job. He was very, very quick last
year, the outstanding newcomer in Formula 1.
“If you just go for the established guys all the
time, where does the next Sebastian Vettel or
Daniel Ricciardo come from? It’s always been a
Red Bull philosophy to invest inwardly and
nurture and develop talent, rather than paying
for a hired hand. I think it’s great that we’re
giving these guys a chance. If Red Bull hadn’t
given Sebastian Vettel a chance, who knows
where he’d be today?”
But for all Red Bull’s confidence in Kvyat,
there is still a possibility that the promotion
could be too much too soon for him. His rookie
campaign was impressive – and his speed is
unquestionable – but he has yet to really string
races together consistently. True, the unreliable
Toro Rosso STR9 let him down far too often
on Sunday afternoons, but Kvyat was still
comfortably outscored by team-mate Jean-Eric
Vergne, an extremely accomplished driver in
his own right who has been snapped up to
become Ferrari’s simulator pilot since being
dropped by Red Bull.
Nevertheless, speak to those who worked with
Kvyat inside Toro Rosso last season and you get
the impression he has exactly the right approach
to make the most of the opportunity laid out in
front of him. In fact, Kvyat’s attitude to racing is
a key attribute that marks him out as a driver to
watch. The Red Bull drive is the result of the
application of that attitude, but the making of it
arguably came during his title-winning campaign
in GP3 in 2013. It was the impressive maturity
and application he showed in turning a poor start
to the season into championship glory that
finally convinced his
backers he was something
special. Kvyat himself
reckons it’s the
adaptability and resilience
in adversity he has
learned to employ – as
a driver and a person
– during his short career
that has been the
making of him.
“If you are having
difficulty, you try to find
an approach and
overcome this difficulty,”
he explains. “You have to
think how you work on
the difficulty, then you
think ‘Ah! Next time
I will try to face it in
the same way’.
“Your personality can
be creative in moments
like that and we were creative that year [in GP3].
But not just in one click, it’s many presences in
Formula Renault 2.0, Formula BMW – you work
with the people, you get good feedback from
them, and all these things kind of build.
“Every person has a very different way. Some
of them are similar, but building it from different
memories, different actions in their lives. This
has been happening in my life.”
The challenge this season is to build himself
into a driver capable of challenging for race wins
and world championships. But he won’t have
much of a grace period, given what Ricciardo
achieved last season. For his part, Kvyat seems
mentally prepared for this challenge.
“It is not an ideal world here,” he concedes.
“Of course, ideally you want to say ‘I’ll take
10 years now to win the championship’ or
,
something easy! But it doesn’t exist like this,