Daniil Kvyat was one of the most promising drivers during his Red Bull junior days and eventually, he got his chance to shine for the team in 2015. However, after only a season and four races, Kvyat was sacked to make way for Max Verstappen in 2016. Even though it was spontaneous and surprising for many, it certainly wasn’t for Kvyat who saw it coming, because the team’s chief Helmut Marko kept dropping hints.
The Russian driver said in a report published by F1 Maximaal that “something was going on” in the team and Red Bull senior advisor Helmut Marko was planning to “change drivers” internally. Kvyat’s partner at Red Bull was none other than Daniel Ricciardo. This was the prime honey badger, who was ruthless, and a clear leader of the team – their best hope of winning races in an era dominated by Mercedes.
Helmut Marko, however, made it clear that Kvyat had to go and outperform Ricciardo. He told the Austrian that he would be giving his best, but knew that Ricciardo was not going to make things easy for him in any way. In the report, he mentions that Ricciardo wasn’t stupid, and knew what was going on.
In the end, the Russian driver failed to keep his seat despite showing signs of improvement in 2016. Kvyat got replaced midway, by 18-year-old Max Verstappen. That move turned out to be golden for the Milton-Keynes-based outfit, as Verstappen won his very first race for them in Spain. Fast forward to 2023, the Dutchman is a three-time world champion with Red Bull.
Daniil Kvyat’s relationship with Red Bull
After Max Verstappen replaced Kvyat at Red Bull, the latter returned to Toro Rosso, currently AlphaTauri. He spent the rest of the year in the sister team and scored a podium along with 25 points.
Kvyat’s days with the Red Bull Racing stable came to an end at the end of the 2017 season. He became Ferrari’s reserve driver in 2018, but his work in Maranello mainly involved him sitting on the simulator. He came back to Toro Rosso (later AlphaTauri) in 2019 and stayed until the 2020 season. That, however, was the last year of Kvyat being officially tied to the Red Bull family.
5 years ago today, Red Bull shocked the F1 world by announcing ‘the swap’ between Max Verstappen and Daniil Kvyat…
And of course F1 decided to put them in the press conference together at the very next race. pic.twitter.com/m0sULvo1jV
— WTF1 (@wtf1official) May 5, 2021
Kvyat never publicly stated that his relationship with Red Bull was bad. Helmut Marko and Co. allowed him to return in 2019 for their sister team, even though he left them a year earlier. Still, the Russian driver holds regret over the fact that his career unraveled in a very short space of time.
Verstappen was the driver who took Kvyat’s seat again, which wasn’t really his decision to make. While he doesn’t hold any grudge against the 26-year-old, Kvyat does blame Verstappen for indirectly destroying his career.
