Fool Me Thrice: The Ballad of Daniil Kvyat

You would have to possess a heart of stone not to have felt for Daniil Kvyat when he was bounced from Red Bull Racing back down to the Scuderia Toro Rosso junior leagues back in 2016.

The Russian racer had secured his first F1 podium less than a month before his demotion, and in 21 grand prix starts for Red Bull during 2015 and early ‘16, Kvyat saw only two retirements and three non-points scoring finishes. He may not have been setting the world alight, but Kvyat was on an upwards trajectory. Until he wasn’t.

One of the nicest guys in Formula 1 off-track (he actually greets journalists by name when he runs into them in restaurants after-hours), Kvyat was cursed with the reputation of a ‘Torpedo’ following a pair of run-ins with Sebastian Vettel, one of which, in the view of this writer, was the quadruple champion’s fault. Vettel moaned and moaned, Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko - who was keen to promote Max Verstappen to a Red Bull race seat at the earliest opportunity - turned a blind eye to Kvyat’s achievements, and it was ‘dasvidaniya Daniil’.

Demoralised by the demotion, Kvyat failed to impress in his second Toro stint, retiring nine times in 32 races. His points haul left a lot to be desired, with three ninth- and three tenth-place finishes before he was dropped completely and left to fend for himself. In both stints with Toro Rosso, he never finished a race any higher than ninth.

Ferrari picked up the slack, offering Kvyat a development role for 2018. That in itself was telling, as it showed that the Scuderia had enough confidence in his technical feedback and on-track experience that they thought Kvyat a potentially valuable resource in their ongoing fight to wrest the constructors’ and drivers’ championships from Mercedes. 

Kvyat put his head down and got to work, but in so doing kept his ear to the ground for potential opportunities as and when they arose. The demotion and subsequent sacking, while galling, actually proved to be the making of the young man from Ufa. Confirmation of his shock return to Toro Rosso for 2019 arrived over the Russian Grand Prix weekend, with many figures chiming in about his growth and development in his year out of the cockpit.

“It's a good thing for Dany,” Red Bull team principal Christian Horner told Sky. “He's in a good space, and I think he's had time to go away from Formula 1, from the limelight of Formula 1 and reflect. It was a big thing for him in 2016 when he got effectively dropped from the senior team to the junior team, and I don't think he ever got his head fully around that. 

“I think actually a bit of time away, a bit of reflection, he's got the speed. He's won championships for us in GP3. 2015, he had some very good races. I think he deserves a second chance, and it'll be interesting to see what he can do.”

Even Marko, never a man for sentiment where drivers are concerned, was impressed by the turnaround in Kvyat’s attitude and approach since his 2017 dismissal.

“Daniil changed,” he told Sky. “He is a far more mature personality. He was working with a different team, so he saw the whole atmosphere and working programme, and he also found out how difficult it is to get a Formula One seat.

“We will give him a third chance because we always believed he's very fast, but his mental problems I think he has solved. He is a far more mature driver, and I'm sure we will see some very positive races from him.”

Red Bull are not a team accustomed to second chances - third, arguably, in the case of Kvyat - and Daniil will have to perform to the peak of his abilities both to retain the Toro Rosso drive beyond 2019, but also to earn another Red Bull chance should the opportunity arrive.

Kvyat’s misfortune was also his greatest opportunity, as the much-vaunted Red Bull Young Driver Programme has become rather sparse of late. Despite investing in upcoming talent over the past decade, the YDP lacks any current Super License holders thanks in no small part to Marko’s unforgiving attitude and easy dismissals. Kvyat was effectively the last man standing when the music stopped; the only realistic prospect with ties to the Red Bull stable.

Whether or not this return is a success is entirely down to Daniil. He will need to consistently beat his as-yet-unnamed teammate if he is to keep his seat beyond the end of 2019, and patchy performances could well see him dropped (again).

Kvyat is well aware of that fact.

“One thing I know for sure is that I’m very positive now, very happy to be back,” he said. “But you cannot be happy forever. You have to acknowledge there is a lot of work ahead. I’ve been working on myself a lot this year.

“It’s very important I think to be in a good mental window with yourself, and this year, it’s exactly what I was focusing on, even though some days it wasn’t certain that I was going to be coming back.

“Once I knew, I was confident that it was going to be very positive.”