Russian youngster to start Bahrain GP from 17th after "energy" problems strike his car; Team-mate Ricciardo qualifies seventh and targets Williams in the race
Tuesday 21 April 2015 11:58, UK
Daniil Kvyat believes he hasn't yet had the chance to show what he's capable of since joining Red Bull after blaming “energy” problems on his RB11 for his Q1 exit in Bahrain.
The Russian, promoted from junior team Toro Rosso over the winter after an eye-catching debut season, has scored just two points so far in 2015 and is one of a handful drivers in the field yet to outqualify his team-mate. Having been compromised by a number of technical problems in the early races, Kvyat was a surprise casualty in the first stage of qualifying at Sakhir on a Saturday which had already started badly when he spun out in P3.
However, insisting that the large gap to the sister Red Bull Daniel Ricciardo in Q1 wasn’t representative of the pace difference between them, Kvyat explained that repeated technical glitches on his car were holding him back.
"There are a few things that myself and the team need to tidy up between us because if these things keep striking qualifying I can’t really deliver an important lap,” the 20-year-old Russian told reporters after qualifying 17th.
“We were having a few issues with our operational stuff, which keeps repeating itself.
“We think that there were a few energy issues. But we need to analyse it deeper and understand what provoked them. It’s like a snowball, one issue causes one issue and another.”
Asked if he could personally have done more with his lap after missing the cut for Q2 by seven tenths of a second, Kvyat replied: “Not so much really, other than a few tenths from my side I can’t see any more. I think the lap was fine enough but more or less all I could do. Of course, if everything was together and tidied up all those little issues I wasn’t 1.2 seconds off my team-mate.”
Kvyat, already on his third engine of the season amid Renault’s ongoing problems with reliability, was widely hailed as a race winner of the future last year but has just one ninth-place finish in Malaysia to show for his 2015 so far. Sky F1’s Martin Brundle remarked during commentary on Saturday that the Russian had made “a scruffy start to his Red Bull career”.
But despite his current troubles, Kvyat is not losing heart and says he and the team will work through their problems so he can start delivering the potential of the car.
“It is frustrating in a way, but in the other way these things can turn around very quickly. If you look at my season so far, there hasn’t been anything clean at the moment. There are obviously a few things to look at but I’m used to sort things out with hard work and with a lot of dedication. It will not change myself.
“Others [teams] are raising their game and it’s about having clean sessions all the team. This is not really happening at the moment and when it’s so tight any small thing can hold you back. This is what is happening to me at the moment but I’m looking forward to a weekend when I can say that ‘this was it’. Then it will be interesting to see where I am actually standing. I don’t even know where I am [in the pecking order] at the moment.”
With one Red Bull out in Q1, Ricciardo led the former world champions’ challenge from the second stage onwards and went onto secure a solid seventh place on the grid. However, the Australian’s post-qualifying glass was certainly half empty after he missed out on pipping the Williams of Felipe Massa by less than a tenth.
“I think the step we made in Q3 to find that extra sort of half second or so was good. I think my first run in Q3 was a really good lap so I felt I really had to reach to get an improvement,” he recounted.
“I was up a little bit in the first sector and then coming into Turn Six I went in hoping for a bit more grip and was a bit too optimistic. So I lost my advantage through six and seven and then the lap was more or less the same for the rest.
“With Felipe being less than a tenth in front, if I’m real critical of myself, that would have been possible. But in any case I feel we have put ourselves in a good position to at least be in striking range and I thought the session went well.”
And asked if he could target the two FW37s in the race, Ricciardo added: “It is going to take everything we have got. If we use everything we have got then we can – and that is everything, that’s strategy, start, tyre management. If we do a 10 out of 10 race from our side which we haven’t yet this season and I feel we are ready for it, then we can challenge them. It is realistic.”
