I've locked 2016 disappointment in a safe, says Daniil Kvyat

By Adam Cooper
Published

Daniil Kvyat insists that he has now put last year’s disappointment of being demoted from Red Bull Racing to Scuderia Toro Rosso behind him.

The Russian is in optimistic mood ahead of the new season, with the STR12 having attracted a lot of favorable comments.

“What's happened last year has been locked in a safe, put under password and taken to another place,” he said. “Maybe it's made me different, but now I’m just focusing on my own job, and nothing else.”

Asked about the threat to his job from Red Bull reserve Pierre Gasly – who is racing in Japan this year – he said: “Everyone wants to be an F1 driver, you know. I think for everyone it is [like this], for me, Carlos. It is the same kind of situation.

“You always have to deliver and I'm confident I will deliver and should be fine. I don't think there will be any kind of unpredictable scenarios. Just do your job clean, like I said. For now, we are focusing on our own performance, not about something what is happening in Japan.”

Meanwhile, Kvyat is confident that the switch from a year-old Ferrari to contemporary Renault power unit will be a positive move for STR.

“Let’s obviously wait and see how testing goes, but last year end of the year Renault was a competitive engine, for sure. I never really had a competitive in my whole F1 career, so hopefully it will change this year. And [this] makes a lot of difference, of course. When you don't have to think about straight-line speed so much, things get lot easier. Obviously we hope the Renault engine will be competitive. That’s all we have to do, and we will discover it soon.”

Regarding team boss Franz Tost targeting fifth place, he said: “I think obviously as a team we want to end up higher than last year in the championship for sure. Last year it was 7th I guess. So we need to aim to have progress. We have to aim to finish higher. How much higher I don't know yet, I think it is a good goal that Franz had sat, for sure. For sure we will work hard for that, for sure we will do our best to achieve that goal.”