After Daniil Kvyat crashed into Sebastian Vettel at the Russian Grand Prix in the second and third corners of the Sochi Autodrom, the 22-year-old Russian drew the short straw from Red Bull Racing’s Helmut Marko. Indeed, the inevitable happened.
The Austrian Formula 1 team based in Milton Keynes, UK, has confirmed that Kvyat will be downgraded to Toro Rosso, the junior team of Red Bull Racing. Bear in mind that Kvyat started his F1 career at Toro Rosso (2013 and 2014). To date, the young Russian scored 124 career points and finished the 2015 season seventh. Now he is back to square one because a) he was foolish in Sochi; b) Verstappen is a better driver.
Christian Horner, Red Bull Racing team principal, had the following to comment: “Dany will be able to continue his development at Toro Rosso, in a team that he is familiar with, giving him the chance to regain his form and show his potential.” Put plainly, he was told to go and take a seat on the naughty chair.
18-year-old Max Verstappen, the youngest driver in Formula 1 history and the son of former F1 racing driver Jos Verstappen, is the big winner of this controversial game of musical chairs, no doubt about that.
“Max has proven to be an outstanding young talent. His performance at Toro Rosso has been impressive so far and we are pleased to give him the opportunity to drive for Red Bull Racing. We are in the unique position to have all four drivers across Red Bull Racing and Toro Rosso under long term contracts with Red Bull, so we have flexibility to move them between the two teams,” explained Horner.
Nevertheless, Max shows great promise. The Dutch youngster has amassed 62 points up to this point, 49 of them in the 2015 season. The question is, what if Max will crash twice into Vettel in Spain? What’ll Marko and Horner do then? I agree with the revised lineup, but I can’t help but feel that it's rather harsh, especially for the guy who finished on the podium two races ago. After all, it’s a dog-eat-dog world out there.
DK "I'm sorry to Seb and also the Team. It doesn't feel great this is probably the messiest first lap of my career." pic.twitter.com/9t5k08xgl0
After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well. Full profile
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