“Very Difficult Situation Mentally”- The Red Bull Driver Who Snubbed Ferrari Only to Be Demoted to Toro Rosso

Driving for Ferrari is a dream for most F1 drivers, but very few actually get to be a part of the legendary outfit. Not driving for Ferrari, doesn’t mean you can’t taste success, but for a certain ex-Red Bull driver, things could have gone very differently had he joined the Maranello-based squad.

Daniil Kvyat is best known for being a part of Toro Rosso for the majority of his career. However, there was a time when Kvyat was offered a spot at Ferrari, something he ended up rejecting. This is because Kvyat was called up to the Red Bull team in 2016, the year Ferrari approached him.

Kvyat, who had been a part of the Red Bull setup for a long time decided to remain in Milton-Keynes. This is according to what the Russian driver said on the Track Limits Podcast. As per Kvyat, rejecting Ferrari put him in a very difficult situation mentally because his career was never the same thereafter.

What happened after Kvyat rejected Ferrari for Red Bull?

Ferrari was looking for a replacement for Kimi Raikkonen and they turned to Kvyat for the same. By deciding to remain at Red Bull, he wanted to achieve great things with the team who helped him find his feet in F1, but things didn’t go according to plan.

Just a few months after the 2016 season started, Kvyat lost his Red Bull seat. The Austrian team felt that his performances were not up to the mark, and they had a talented driver in Max Verstappen in Toro Rosso. The Ufa-born driver was demoted back to Red Bull’s sister team, and Verstappen got the jump.

In his very first race, Verstappen took the world of F1 by storm by winning his debut Red Bull race in Barcelona. Verstappen’s appointment went on to create shockwaves for years to come, and Red Bull’s trust in him paid off because as of 2023, he is a two-time world champion with them.

Daniil Kvyat’s career after rejecting Ferrari

Teams like Ferrari don’t have an empty seat for long. The Maranello-based outfit decided to keep Raikkonen for another two years, before he left for Sauber. Kvyat meanwhile, remained with Toro Rosso for the remainder of the 2016 season and the entirety of the following campaign.

He spent the 2018 years on the sidelines as Ferrari’s reserve driver, so his dream of being a part of the Scuderia came true (sort of). Toro Rosso, however, decided to bring him back in 2019, and he remained with them for two more years before losing his place on the F1 grid altogether.

Kvyat is currently a part of Prema Racing in the FIA World Endurance Championship.