Daniil Kvyat

**Daniil Vyacheslavovich Kvyat** is a Russian racing driver who formerly competed in Formula 1.5. Debuting in the 2014 season for Scuderia Toro Rosso, he achieved three career wins with a best championship finish of 3rd across 6 years of competition.

## Personal Life

Born on April 26th, 1994 in Ufa, Russia to Vyacheslav and Zulfiya Kvyat, Daniil was an only child and grew up in Moscow for much of his childhood- moving there at the age of six. First entering professional motorsport at 11, he would later move to Italy in order to further his racing career alongside his family and now resides in Monaco. He was formerly in a relationship with Kelly Piquet, daughter of triple Formula One (and double Formula 1.5) champion Nelson Piquet, in which they had a single daughter, Penelope. Apart from his native Russian, Kvyat is also fluent in Italian, Spanish and English.

## F1.5 Career

### 2013: Pre-Formula 1.5

As a testing driver for Scuderia Toro Rosso, Kvyat would drive in two practice sessions for the final two races of the 2013 season- the United States and Brazilian Grands Prix.

### Toro Rosso (2014)

#### 2014 Season

Kvyat signed with Toro Rosso for the 2014 Formula 1.5 season alongside teammate Jean-Eric Vergne. The Russian showed strong pace in his first season- finishing 7th to take home points on debut and consistently finishing high inside the Top 10 well throughout the championship, but never managing to break out of the Top 5. He finished in a respectable 8th on the final leaderboard with 100 points, just below teammate Vergne on 132.

### Red Bull (2015)

#### 2015 Season

Having clearly made his mark on the Formula 1.5 scene, Daniil would achieve a promotion as he moved up to Red Bull Racing- accommodating the vacancy left by departing champion Sebastian Vettel. In the German's sudden absence, the team had experienced a dip in performance and dropped down to F1.5. However, Kvyat showcased that it was still able to compete upfront, demonstrating impressive speed early on that culminated in a brilliant maiden win - at the notoriously difficult Circuit de Monaco, no less - achieving a 1-2 with teammate Daniel Ricciardo. A few races later and the Russian would take his 2nd victory at the challenging Hungarian Grand Prix, taking a 1-2-3 with Ricciardo and Toro Rosso driver Max Verstappen. With an astonishing start to the 2015 season, Kvyat seemed a strong contender for the title, but was unable to match the dominant Williams pairing of Valtteri Bottas and Felipe Massa, whose season-wide consistency trumped the Red Bull in the long run. Despite this, the #26 managed to finish in 3rd overall, his best season result yet, managing to accelerate RBR back into F1 and where they belonged at the top.

### Toro Rosso 2nd Stint (2016-2017, 2019)

#### 2016 Season

Remaining with Red Bull into 2016, Kvyat did not compete in the first 4 races of the 2016 Formula 1.5 season, competing in F1.0 for RBR. However, a controversial altercation in the fourth round caused him to be demoted back to his old team of Scuderia Toro Rosso, being replaced by prodigy Max Verstappen.

Having missed the start of the season, Kvyat was already at a considerable points deficit against the rest of the higher teams (including teammate Carlos Sainz Jr.) but managed to keep up his run of consistent points finishes, including a podium at Singapore. However, similarly to his debut season, he struggled to break out of the lower half of the Top 10, and would finish middle-of-the-road in a somewhat disappointing 10th place with 67 points.

#### 2017 Season

Being renewed for the 2017 season, Daniil returned to F1.5 competition for his fourth season and eager to improve. Despite continuing to stay consistent and achieve more points finishes, the Russian driver was being utterly outclassed by teammate Sainz who scored three wins and six podiums overall. Ultimately, his performance was not improving and Toro Rosso made the decision to replace him after the Singapore GP with Pierre Gasly. Kvyat would finish 11th on 70 points in a season cut short.

In the week between the United States and Mexican Grands Prix, it was confirmed by Helmut Marko that Kvyat would not return to the team and would be released out of the Red Bull driver development programme.

#### 2019 Season

Kvyat rejoined Toro Rosso as a driver for the 2019 season, replacing the Red Bull-bound Pierre Gasly. This saw Kvyat race for the team he debuted in Formula 1.5 for a third time in his career. He initially raced alongside Thai driver Alexander Albon, who moved up from the FIA Formula 2 Championship. Kvyat put in strong performances during the first half of the season scoring in the first two races. However, he suffered consecutive retirements in China and Azerbaijan, both as a result of collision damage. Kvyat took his first podium of the season at Spain with a third place finish, followed by a 2nd place finish at the next race in Monaco. In Great Britain, he finished the race 4th after starting from the backrow, then at Germany he took his first and only win of the season in a wet-dry race at Germany.

During the summer break prior to the Belgian Grand Prix, Kvyat's teammate Albon was promoted to Red Bull in August to replace Pierre Gasly, who was demoted back to Toro Rosso. Some questioned the decision not to promote Kvyat instead, as he had outperformed Albon during the first half of the season. Red Bull justified the move by saying they wished to trial Albon for the remainder of the season to decide who would partner Max Verstappen at the team in 2020.

Kvyat produced an excellent drive in Belgium to finish in 2nd place after starting on the backrow due to power unit penalties. His third retirement of the season came at the next race in Italy after suffering an oil leak. Kvyat took one more podium in the season to finish third at Abu Dhabi.

He finished the season 5th in the standings with 179 points.

### AlphaTauri (2020)

#### 2020 Season

AlphaTauri (previously Toro Rosso) retained Kvyat and Gasly for the 2020 season. Kvyat retired from the first race of the season (the 2020 Austrian Grand Prix) due to a suspension failure. He received his first point of the season at the Styrian Grand Prix with a sixth-place finish. He retired at the British Grand Prix after a heavy crash into the barriers that was caused by a tyre failure. Kvyat finished second in the 2020 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix after a succession of overtakes on the safety car restart.

The Russian finished the season 9th in the standings with 99 points, compared to team-mate Pierre Gasly who scored 144 points and finished seventh. His contract was not renewed and Yuki Tsunoda replaced Kvyat at AlphaTauri for 2021.