Daniil Kvyat will come good at Red Bull, insists Franz Tost

Toro Rosso chief Franz Tost has backed his former driver Daniil Kvyat to come good at Red Bull, insisting the Russian has the “champion gene”.

Kvyat, who turned 21 last month, has experienced a tough baptism to life at a top F1 outfit this season with his own acclimatisation period to the senior Red Bull team coming at the same time as their worst start to a season for seven years.

Partnering three-time race winner Daniel Ricciardo, Kvyat has beaten the Australian just once in both qualifying and a race so far and admitted last Sunday’s Spanish GP represented a “bad day” for him after finishing only 10th, the Russian relegated to the final points position late on by one of Toro Rosso’s latest promising rookies, Carlos Sainz.

During his own debut year at Red Bull’s junior squad last season, Kvyat was widely hailed as a race-winning star of the future as he became the sport’s then-youngest points scorer and outqualified more experienced team-mate Jean-Eric Vergne over the course of the campaign.

Kvyat would have still been at Toro Rosso this season but for Sebastian Vettel's unexpected moved to Ferrari and Tost, who has helped guide all Red Bull’s home-grown drivers during their initial steps in F1, has no doubt the Russian youngster will fulfil his potential once he gains more experience.

“It takes time to mature in an F1 car,” the Toro Rosso team principal told the official F1 website. “That is why I say that I want to work with drivers for three years – and then hand them over.

“Daniil had only one year with Toro Rosso. He is facing car troubles and is simply not as experienced as Daniel Ricciardo, who was with us for three years and had half a year with HRT.

“Daniil is a very highly skilled driver and I am convinced that if his car is reliable he will be very fast. He will have a successful future. He is very, very skilled - he has the champion gene.”

Having decided to change both drivers for 2015 following Kvyat’s sudden promotion to Red Bull, Toro Rosso are fielding the youngest line-up in F1 history with 17-year-old Max Verstappen and 20-year-old Sainz.

Despite their lack of experience, the pair have consistently impressed and locked out the third row of the grid in Spain – the second-best qualifying result in Toro Rosso’s history.

Tost insists he is not surprised they are producing eye-catching performances, although is expecting both youngsters to inevitably run into a tricky period of results at some stage.

“I expected it from them because otherwise they would not drive for us. They have shown that they are capable of being in the Red Bull driver pool,” the Austrian added.

“We had a tough winter to prepare them, but we successfully managed it as the first races have shown. I always said that if we give them a fast and reliable car they will always finish among the 10 best - otherwise we could never have targeted P5 in the Constructors’ Championship.

“Yes, there will come a crash period, as you cannot expect from such young drivers to have a flawless season, but we are prepared for that.”