F1: Kvyat reflects on his first trouble-free race of the year
Dany Kvyat says he has learned a lot from his ninth-place finish in Bahrain after his first untroubled race of the season.
Kvyat retired in Melbourne and Shanghai and, while he finished in Malaysia, brake issues compromised his race. Last weekend he charged up from a lowly 17th on the grid.
“The recovery was not too bad I think, starting from there,” he said. “It wasn't easy, the first laps. I think we all more or less managed the race on our strategy. So a good recovery, and these kind of races put a little bit of a smile on my face. We finished, we ran solid, we got a lot of information and feedback from the car. So this time we can look at where we can improve.
“It's very important because in China and Australia I couldn't learn much, unfortunately. Here I would say it's probably the first quite clean race from a reliability point of view, and now we can start moving forward from here on.”
Asked what promises he wanted from Renault, he said: “I think we don't want any promises, we just want to see progress itself. We both as a team and the engine side want to improve, working with Renault, improving our chassis, me analyzing the race and understanding where I can pick up the pace. It's a long process, many things are happening and going on, and hopefully we will come up with something.”
Red Bull boss Christian Horner says that Daniil Kvyat's drive to ninth place in Bahrain will serve as a big boost for the Russian, who has had a difficult start to his first season with RBR.
“I think both drivers did a good job today, they got everything they could out of it,” said Horner. “The recovery Dany had from 17th was pretty good really. He drove a good race in Malaysia, but he's had the lion's share of bad luck. If anything's gone wrong it's tended to happen with him.
“It's good for his confidence, a race like that. He just needs a clean weekend really, and the potential's there. Then you'll see him just get stronger and stronger.”