Kvyat rues ‘tough sport with politics in play’

Contemplating the end of his F1 career, for now, Daniil Kvyat says Formula 1 is “tough sport” in which “politics are in play”.

Not for the first time in his career, Kyvat is facing the Red Bull axe, set to be dropped from the team’s junior outfit, AlphaTauri, at the end of the year.

Kvyat, losing the team-mate battle against Pierre Gasly by 32 points to the Frenchman’s 71, is expected to be replaced by Yuki Tsunoda in the 2021 line up.

Tsunoda all but sealed his place on the grid with a P3 in this year’s Formula 2 championship, handing the Honda protégé enough superlicence points to join the F1 grid.

Although there had been some doubts about Tsunoda’s participation given that Honda will be leaving F1 at the end of 2021, Red Bull are hoping to continue with Honda’s power unit by taking over the IP and rebadging the engines.

“It’s a tough sport,” Kvyat conceded to RaceFans.net.

“The competition here is tough, also the politics are in play. It’s normal, I can accept it after many years around here.”

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Kvyat has been showing good pace of late, fourth at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, his best result of the season, and seventh in Sunday’s Sakhir race.

It is, however, believes to be too little too late for the Russian driver.

That seems to be the story of his Formula 1 career with Kvyat saying “timing” hasn’t been his friend.

“It’s very good that I managed to show this very strong weekend now, at the end of the year, so that it’s fresh in people’s memory and I can have a go to come back with somebody in 2022,” he continued.

“I still feel like I have a lot to give to Formula 1.

“I know that if an opportunity comes I will be able to fight for a World Championship, that’s for sure.

“So it’s just about timing. Sometimes timing was great in my career. Sometimes it was very poor.”

Kvyat competed in his first season in Formula 1 in 2014 before being promoted to Red Bull a year later.

The senior team retained for him for the 2016 championship but that was at a time when Max Verstappen was knocking on the door, putting pressure on Red Bull to hand him a senior team promotion or risk losing him.

After four races of the 2016 season, one of which Kvyat finished on the podium, he was demoted back to Toro Rosso with Verstappen stepping up.

Kvyat was dropped by the Red Bull family after 2017, spent a year with Ferrari, before once again joining Red Bull’s junior team.

His time, though, is now up.

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