Kvyat loses seat to Gasly for Malaysian Grand Prix

2017 Malaysian Grand Prix

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Daniil Kvyat has been dropped from Toro Rosso’s driver line-up for this weekend’s Malaysian Grand Prix, the team has announced.

Red Bull junior driver Pierre Gasly has been confirmed as his replacement. The 21-year-old from Rouen in France will make his F1 debut at Sepang this weekend.

Toro Rosso said Gasly will take Kvyat’s place “for the next grands prix”.

The driver switch gives us an opportunity to make a more informed decision regarding our 2018 driver choices,” said Toro Rosso team principal Franz Tost.

“Toro Rosso was established by Red Bull to bring youngsters from its junior programme into Formula One and that’s what we are doing by giving Pierre this chance,” he added.

“He is the next in line at Red Bull for this opportunity and he has shown that he deserves it, having taken the 2016 GP2 title and this year being very competitive in the Super Formula series in Japan.”

Gasly has scored two wins and a second place in the last three races in Super Formula. “He really has a valid chance of winning the title, as he is only half a point behind the leader,” said Tost.

However it remains to be seen whether Gasly’s F1 chance will rule him out of fighting for the title in Japan. The final round of the Super Formula championship at Suzuka clashes with the United States Grand Prix weekend.

Red Bull began backing Gasly in 2014, the year after he won the Formula Renault 2.0 Eurocup title. He has previously tested for Toro Rosso and Red Bull but has not yet taken part in a grand prix weekend.

“I would like to thank everyone who has helped me get this chance in my motor racing career and specifically, Red Bull, Dr Helmut Marko and Scuderia Toro Rosso,” said Gasly.

“This is a great opportunity for me. I feel as ready as I can be, having had to be prepared for anything in my role as Red Bull Racing’s third driver this year. I will do my best to perform well with Scuderia Toro Rosso during these coming races.”

Kvyat ‘still part of the family’

The move leaves a question mark over Kvyat’s future. This is the second time in as many seasons he’s been dropped from one of Red Bull’s teams. Last year he was demoted from Red Bull to Toro Rosso when the team promoted Max Verstappen. Since then Kvyat has scored eight world championship points compared to team mate Carlos Sainz Jnr’s 94.

Toro Rosso stressed “this is not a case of goodbye for our Daniil, as he still remains part of the Red Bull family.”

“For a variety of reasons, some of them due to technical problems, but others being mistakes of his own making, Daniil Kvyat has not really shown his true potential so far this year, which is why we are standing him down for the next races,” said Tost. “This will give us the opportunity to evaluate Pierre on track during a proper race weekend.”

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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119 comments on “Kvyat loses seat to Gasly for Malaysian Grand Prix”

  1. Historically, Toro Rosso exists for the primary reason of comparing drivers for Red Bull. We now have Honda thrown into the equation, who may also be making some demands (though I’d argue that they’re in no place to just yet).

    It wouldn’t surprise me at all to see a totally new driver combination at Toro Rosso next year if Pierre Gasly can compare reasonably well to Carlos Sainz. If Gasly is already on, or exceeding, the level of Daniil Kvyat, then there is no real need to retain Kvyat in 2018 for comparison, leaving a space for a Honda backed driver like Nobuharu Matsushita.

    Toro Rosso and Red Bull have shown to be ruthless in the past and it’s quite clear that Kvyat won’t be returning to the main team, so there’s no need for him, especially if Honda pay to have one of their drivers racing.

    1. Nobuharu Matsushita does not have enough point to drive for torro rosso next year.

      1. I’d forgotten about that. To be honest, I often take the superlicense points with a pinch of salt as from memory it seems that the FIA can give special dispensation whenever they see fit. I hope that’s not the case as I think it’s important that only the very best make the grade.

        1. @ben-n the current regulations leave no possibility at all for special dispensations (they did in the past) if the driver didn’t have a super licence in the past. For Kubica, e.g., it would suffice to do a 300km test and a favorable ruling by the FIA, but young drivers do not qualify for this.

        2. @ben-n Now how many points has Sato got? :p

    2. @ben-n Matsushita faces a though challenge to be able to compete next year in F1. He is currently 6th and 37 points adrift of the third place, with a maximum of 96 points to grab in the 4 remaining races.

      There is quite a chance he won’t make it next year but if Matsushita gets his points, they’ll probably stick with Kvyat for continuity.

    3. With the number of chances handed to Kvyat, one cannot accuse Red Bull of being ruthless here. It’s merely about time.

      1. Most his problems are mechanical. He had much more mechanical failures this year than Sainz.

        1. You do not want to have torpedos on board during a battle which are prone to mechanical failures ;)

        2. @regs even so, Dani knew he’s been driving for his life since Red Bull demoted him and instead of impressing everyone, he’s been so disappointing that no one even remembers or cares about the mechanical failures. In 2015 Sainz was unlucky and had bad luck and that combination cost him Dani’s ride at Red Bull but at least he impressed folks enough and everyone knew that he was as quick as Max.

          After Max got promoted, Sainz dug really deep and instead of getting destroyed by that, he has proven that he’s one of the top drivers in the paddock.

          On the other hand, Kvyat has been digging himself a deeper and deeper hole every time he gets in the car. He’s been trying to beat Sainz using all the wrong tactics, except for brilliant racing.

          At this point, he should just hope he gets to race again in F1 and scores as many points as possible.

          1. Most thinks same of Verstappen

          2. @freelittlebirds, in the case of Kvyat, I wouldn’t be surprised if there is an aspect of him having had his confidence so completely torn to pieces by the way that Red Bull handled him that he just cannot maintain consistent form.

            In the 2016 Chinese GP, for example, instead of congratulating him on his podium, Marko reportedly spent most of the time after the race shouting abuse at Kvyat because he’d affected Vettel’s race (with Marko caring more for Vettel, whom he reportedly still referred to as “his driver”, than he did for Kvyat).
            Asides from that, after the season there were suggestions that, irrespective of how well Kvyat had done during the season, Marko was always going to dump him back into Toro Rosso anyway because he’d promised his seat to Verstappen – it must be somewhat soul destroying to know that, however well you might have done, it could never have been enough.

            Furthermore, the suggestion is that the atmosphere within Toro Rosso itself has been somewhat toxic, with the suggestion that Sainz Jr and his family have been the primary cause of that (the suggestion being that one reason why Verstappen was promoted to Red Bull when he was is because Marko had to do it to stop Sainz and Verstappen fighting so much off the track).

            Add to that the constant sniping at him by the media and the fans, and in some ways I wonder if perhaps it might be something of a relief for him that he’s been benched.

          3. @regs

            I think most team principals on the paddock rate Verstappen very highly.

            @anon I agree it’s a horrible situation that Kvyat’s in and he’s making it worse.

            If he gets a few P4-P6 results, that would help boost his confidence tremendously. Nothing speaks louder than results.

          4. @freelittlebirds
            I understand we can have different opinions, but I couldn’t rate Sainz as one of the best in the field just yet. The main reason for this is because of his accidents this year in Bahrain and Canada. The strange thing is that Sainz has been responsible for just as many retirements as Kvyat this season and that doesn’t look very good really does it? His results are certainly much better but I still think Kvyat is showing that he has potential. At the start of the season, I did a comparison, and I think you even agreed that Kvyat hadn’t really done that badly compared to Sainz but mainly because of Sainz’s incidents. Now, Sainz has clearly looked better overall. But their mid season analysis of their average qualifying gap times resulted in Kvyat being marginally ahead. This may have involved a little bit of bad luck on Sainz’s side, but the fact remains, they are still close in qualifying. And even as recently as Italy, Kvyat was better over qualifying and the race.

            I won’t deny that Sainz is a lot better, But I still personally think Kvyat is still good enough to remain with the team next year. I certainly think that will be better than having 2 new rookies. As I think it is unlikely that that will work out as well as Verstappen and Sainz did in 2015. I am pretty certain Kvyat will manage to do better than a rookie to start with for sure. And having experience does help quite a lot too.

          5. @thegianthogweed
            I agree with your statements. I should have used one of the most promising drivers in the field instead.

            It’s easy to kick Kvyat while he’s down and I do hope he’s able to redeem himself over the rest of the season and next season.

            Driving behind Sainz for a few races may not be such a horrible thing to do as long as he’s right there. It will show a lot of maturity and show that he’s at least learning from his mistakes.

            If he can pounce to a great result in 1-2 races, that would be super.

            Then next year, he can use that momentum to build back. He should be seeing someone to coach him and help him because there’s no doubt that he’s been on tilt for over a year now.

  2. who could have ever seen this coming oh no

    1. @Paul‘s dad. Not me, LOL.

    2. I thought Toro Rosso had a little bit more sense than to try this.

      1. I thought Red Bull did too, but Helmut Marko is a very nice and sensible person.
        Or Danil Kvyat is a terrible piece of work.
        Or both.

      2. Yeah I think his “shut up” and crashing a few corners later tingled someone to make this decision.

      3. I don’t see what difference it makes, it’s not like Kvyat was likely to score much this weekend. If anything it might be detrimental to Gasly’s Super Formula campaign, but I doubt he’s too bothered about that.

  3. Wow not even a free practice subbing but a full on race weekend! Brutal but not surprising.

    1. The team principle who’s name I do not care to remember said “races” plural.

      IF that was not a typo or a miss pronunciation then it could be more than just one race

  4. This is so unusual. I get wanting Gasly to get some experience, but Kvyat is 99% likely to drive there next season, with no Honda driver ready for a superlicense. So, Kvyat gets no chance to improve?

    1. @hahostolze Maybe it is necessary for Gasly to run at least a full weekend on a 2017 Renault Torro Rosso to be able to compare and provide good feedback on the 2018 Honda STR?

      1. Yeah, that’s definitely a possibility. I read that they wanted to let him sub in for Sainz instead, but need the points for 5th.

        1. @hahostolze that was my thoughts as well, regarding the WCC points. This is damage limitation for 2017 with sights set on 2018. It’s a shame though because it doesn’t help their relationship with Kvyat to pull him out. That’s the reality of professional sports however.

    2. With his penalty points, Kvyat is dangerously close to earning a race ban if he messes up in Sepang.

      I’m also glad that they’re still giving Gasly a chance to win the SuperFormula title. It would be much more impressive than his GP2 title, given the tracks and cars are new to him yet he’s left all the other Honda runners behind, competing alone at the front of the field against all the Toyotas.

    3. Kvyat will be there warming the place for Nobuharu Matsushita

  5. The photo above the article is perfect.

    1. You vs the guy she tells you not to worry about.

      1. @John COTD right there.

    2. taken directly after each of them got the message ;)

  6. 2nd drop for Kvyat in 1,5 year…Yes,he has massively underperformed this season,but by dropping him(again),his psychology will be destroyed even more than the initial drop & he will never return to any kind of good shape in the future…

    1. I’d argue that his psychology is already nowhere with his petulant attitude and outbursts.

      1. It can, and probably will get worse – and Toro Rosso is stuck with him for 2018.

        1. Toro Rosso is stuck with him for 2018

          Why? @alianora-la-canta

          Even if he shows up in Melbourne, (next week’s) history tells us that he is unlikely to do a full season ;)

    2. Its not like he didnt get the chance to prove himself. Kvyat does reasonably well during qualifying 6 wins vs 8 loses against Sainz. But on race days he consistantly messes up, he only scored 4 points with 5 DNFs. Sainz scored 48 points with 4 DNFs so the difference in race pace is massive.

    3. Almost any driver in any category would kill for the chances Kvyat has had. He should have taken 2017 as a show-off year to jump to another team, like Sainz did.

  7. So a Honda driver in RE second STR for next season then?..there isn’t a driver with enough Super Licence points in the Honda stable no?

  8. At only 23, is this the quickest rise and fall of any Formula One driver!?

    Debut at 19, hoisted to one of the best teams the very next year, dropped by that team the following year and dropped completely the year after that! Brutal…

    Does anything in F1’s history compare?

    1. Antonio Pizzonia was meant to be the next Senna, then his career completely stalled when he reached F1 and he was totally shaded by Webber at Jaguar and Williams. His career was over by 25

    2. Jaime Alguersuari entered F1 at 19, was supposed to be the next great thing and left two years later. Three guesses which team he drove for, and the first two don’t count.

    3. Alguersuari, Buemi, Bourdais, Speed… All were more brutal than Kvyat really.

      The Russian should never have been promoted to Red Bull in the first place. He wasn’t capable of replacing Vettel.

      1. He did and he showed it well outplaying Ricciardo.

      2. I would add JEV to that list.

    4. Piquet Jr. with Renault, Ivan Capelli with Ferrari, Alex Zanardi with Williams with top team, JJ Lehto with Benetton.

  9. tgu (@thegrapeunwashed)
    26th September 2017, 11:10

    While I don’t really rate Kvyat highly, Williams should snap him up for next year in the hope of getting Bottas for 2019.

    1. I agree that I’d take Kvyat over Massa, but at only 23, he doesn’t meet Martini’s age requirements, so I think that would rule him out. I think 2019 will be a big shuffle on the driver market; should be fun!

      1. Kvyat over massa? Look at this year’s results, didn’t all just say reliability for massa has been terrible? So has kvyats, giving a quite fair comparison, williams is only slightly better than toro rosso, but massa got a load of points, kvyat 4? I know points don’t tell the whole story, but kvyat is both more crash prone AND slower than sainz, look at the last race: he was behind him AND he ended up crashing which sainz didn’t do.

        Massa, like sainz, is reliable; at 36 he might not be as fast any more, but definitely there’s no reason to throw massa out of williams, he’s doing ok.

        I’d like it more if kubica came at williams, assuming massa doesn’t want to continue in 2018, or hell, I’d even prefer if they let palmer come there rather than kvyat.

  10. Wow… So if this is happening, who drives next year alongside Gasly?

    1. Kvyat will be back in Austin if Gasly wants his Super Formula title, so I assume Kvyat. No other RB junior is ready, nor anyone connected to Honda unless they’ve suddenly taken a massive liking to McLaren youngster De Vries. Doubt it.

  11. Kvyats only scored 4 points all season which, when you look at Sainz’s total, really isn’t very much. Will speak volumes if Gasly manages to surpass that total.

    1. Again he had much more mechanical failures, especially costing him a lot of practice time and underperforming the car in most races.

      1. costing him a lot of practice time

        He still had a lot more practice time than Gasly will have come Sunday!

      2. Since Kvyat was demoted back to Toro Rosso, he’s scored 8 points while Sainz has scored 90. Mechanical failures and lack of practice is no excuse for that kind of performance.

      3. Indeed, like someone said already, the difference is really huge between kvyat and sainz, it’s true that points don’t tell the whole story, which is how you can see verstappen has more potential than ricciardo and is way behind on points just cause of horrible reliability, but you can also see that for that little he stays in the race he’s faster.

        Sainz is both faster and a safer pair of hands than kvyat, it’s a no brainer.

        1. This year alone, I don’t know if I could actually say Sainz is a much safer pair of hands than Kvyat. The 2 incidents Sainz has had have had bigger impacts than any of Kvyats. While Kvyat has had more incidents, Sainz and Kvyat have both been responsible for 4 retirements this season.

          I also can’t say the difference is really huge between Kvyat and Sainz. It is very big, but not as big as people think. It could be the same with Red Bull. The lack of track time they have had together during the race makes it impossible to work out who is actually better this season. Just because Verstappen is better at the starts quite often doesn’t mean that he will have continued to be better than Ricciardo at all. Maybe Ricciardo would have been better than Verstappen in all the races he’s done well in? From the evidence we have seen, we just don’t know unless we see it.

          With Toro Rosso, Sainz and Kvyat are very close when you average out the gap between their qualifying times. And on several race days, Kvyat has actually looked stronger. And one of these was as recently as Italy. So the fact that Kvyat still managed to do better than Sainz every now and then shows that the gap between them isn’t absolutely massive. Unfortunately, Kvyat’s better performances tend to be when he has a technical problem during the race or is at a track that the team are not really good enough to score points. And then because of this, people don’t notice it. I don’t want to say Kvyat is good, because he hasn’t been. But he has been very unlucky and isn’t quite as far behind Sainz as the points suggest. I also think that with a new season against a new driver, the pressure may be off him then and he may be able to perform very well again. He certainly wasn’t that bad in 2015. There were several races where he generally looked better than Ricciardo. I think it is unlikely that he won’t ever be able to repeat those performances again sometime if he gets another chance. He’s still very young. I just think being dropped by Red Bull has affected him very much. Hopefully he will be in the sport next year and will get another chance to prove himself.

  12. Matsushita won’t have enough point for a 2018 licence and the other RB juniors are even younger. So with Sainz on loan to Renault, i don’t see anyone replacing Kvyat.

  13. Max should be nervous. He is way further behind Dan than Kvyat ever was and he is causing way more accidents too. Max to get the axe.

    1. Do you even watch F1?

      1. @nuggy1980 you hear a whistling sound overhead?
        That’s the joke passing you by;)

        1. Yeah, they usually do… :-)

    2. Hope you get COTD John. Just so everybody can read this brilliant piece of humor.

    3. Max to get the axe.

      I think that must be a typo. Have you heard somewhere that Verstappen has been enlisted to do a deodorant advert?

  14. I didn’t see this coming at all, LOL.

  15. Nobuhara, last I checked, was not eligible for a Superlicence. This would be the big snag in the plan.

  16. I kinda feel bad for Kvyat. I mean his first stint in Toro Rosso wasn’t bad, nor was his first year at Red Bull. There was a lot of potential. Ever since he was demoted back down to Toro Rosso he’s just not seemed properly there – making mistakes, slow or being scrappy. Can’t help but feel the ‘demotion’ hit him pretty hard.

    Even so Gasly seems like he’s got the potential Kvyat’s lost along the way. I figured Gasly and Kvyat would be Toro Rosso’s lineup next year – continuity and potential, but maybe Toro Rosso are going to go for an all-new line up? It’ll never happen but I kinda wish Felix Rosenqvist would get it.

    1. Oh god yes please put Felix in that car for next season.

    2. It is sad, in a way. I really thought he had a ton of potential. But since the rise of Verstappen, he never seemed to mentally be on top of his game. He knew he was under pressure to keep his seat and made mistake, after mistake. He hasn’t stopped that trend ever since, either.

      I can’t imagine publicly calling out Red Bull asking to know of his whereabouts for next season helped, either.

  17. This is a true pity! I will miss Kelly Piquet.

    1. @Hakk The Rack
      Well, Kvyat will miss her too after these news:)

  18. Maybe they’re making way for an empty seat to tempt Alonso to drive for Toro Rosso next year. He’ll probably want to follow Honda anyway so its a good call.

    1. Yeah, Alonso and Honda seem a perfect match for next year.

  19. Pascal Wehrlein is looking for a seat for next year.

    Why shouldn’t that be possible?
    Sainz is a RedBull family member and will drive for the brand that will leave RedBull hanging in 2019?
    Money talks and makes things possible.

    1. They’re already farming out one of their guys, I don’t think they want to be farming someone ‘in’ in one of their spots! They’ll want this for one of their future prospects.

  20. Somewhere Joylon Palmer is breathing a sigh of relief.

  21. I know that there are more than a few people in the F1 paddock & indeed even within Red Bull & Toro Rosso that are not totally convinced by Gasly.

    Yes he won the F2 title last year & yes he’s fighting for the Super Formula title this year, However comparing his junior career to others it’s far less impressive. Just 13 wins in 7 years, 3 years in the GP2/F2 level before he scored his 1st win, Has finished towards the tail end of the top 10 in the championship more often than not.

    It’s also looked at that in GP2 last year his rookie team mate at Prema Antonio Giovinazzi was faster than him, Won a race before him, Won more races than him & came within 8 points of beating him to the championship, Again in his rookie season in that category.

    I also gather that Gasly’s previous F1 test’s were not exactly seen as overly impressive in terms of either speed or technical feedback.

    1. @gt-racer You’re overly pessimistic and you have a few things wrong.

      Has finished towards the tail end of the top 10 in the championship more often than not.

      That’s not correct by a mile. 2012 FR2.0, 2015 GP2 were the only times he didn’t finish top three in series he drove a full season. That’s two times out of 7 full seasons (kind of counting on him to finish at least third in SF this year for that).

      It’s also looked at that in GP2 last year his rookie team mate at Prema Antonio Giovinazzi was faster than him, Won a race before him, Won more races than him & came within 8 points of beating him to the championship, Again in his rookie season in that category.

      Giovinazzi did not look faster – Gasly was unlucky on a fair few occasions. The fire extinguisher incident in Hungary, e.g., cost him a lot of points (both in feature as well as in sprint race), and a very unlucky SC cost him a win in Monza as well (which then went to Giovinazzi). With luck evened out, he would have had a lot more space between him and Gio in the standings.

      All that put aside, in the past 4.5 years Gasly has won FR2.0, has been a rookie FR3.5 runner-up, has won GP2 and is now half a point from the lead in SF with one weekend to go, this again as a rookie and with the Honda engine that’s a bit down on the Toyota. This is a track record that fully merits an F1 seat.

    2. I agree. I’m not convinced he’s a world beater, but let’s see how he gets on, and how long he has to be judged…

  22. I’m surprised it didn’t happen sooner.

  23. The most telling stat though between Kvyat and Sainz is that Dani has scored 132 points in 5 years in F1 and 95 of those points came in 2015 with Red Bull and 21 from 2016 again with Red Bull. He scored 116 with Red Bull but only 16 points with Toro Rosso in almost 4 years.

    On the other hand Sainz has scored 112 points in less than 3 years at Toro Rosso and were it not for bad luck in his 1st season and 2 incidents with Kvyat this year, he would have outscored Dani.

    TBH at this point, even Dani should be handing the keys to Franz and thanking him for the opportunity.

    It’s going to be very tough for him to show up at the paddock. He must really want to go back to last year and start those races better or at least watched his silly comments afterwards. He’s very lucky he’s still driving a car considering his antics with Sainz this year. He simply needed to score points this season – instead he cost his team and Sainz points at Baku and at Silverstone.

  24. Daniil Kvyat: “Please leave me alone”
    CRASH
    “I’m sorry guys, I’m sorry.”

    Race engineer: Ahem, Daniil, please proceed to the nearest naughty corner where you will be left well alone!

  25. I thought it was a long time since we had (at least) 3 French drivers in a F1 race, but in the period of 2012-2014 there were always 3 (even 4 in 2013) french drivers racing, not including reserve or drivers doing practice sessions…

    1. What? Palmer the following replacement for Kvyat? :D

  26. I just hope they let Gasly finish his Super Formula season. I’d love to see him fight for the title.

    1. To be fair, Super Formula is nothing more than a waiting room in Red Bull’s eyes. It was merely a means of keeping Gasly sharp in a single seater.

      1. But it’s also a way to see how he performs under pressure @ecwdanselby

        He will have to fight more for it than in GP2 last year.

  27. Great news! Very tired of seeing someone as wasteful as Daniil occupy that seat. I’m not so sure it’s great news for Gasly, though.

    If I were him, i’d (ideally) want to be in that seat for the start of the 2018 season, and have the entire season (if that luxury could be afforded) to be judged on. It now looks like he’ll hastily be judged on a GP or two before the next season begins.

    Tricky.

    1. Nah, I see your point, but this is just an overture for next season.

  28. My opinion, is that the team just wants to compare Gasly with Sainz, they won’t have another chance to do that next year , so Kvyat should be back, unless they find another rookie or maybe a current driver that is going to lose the seat for 2018, … maybe Pascal Wehrlein??? who knows…

  29. Very risky move for Gasly’s career, str doesnt trust him to sign him for next season. Pierre is going to have to match sainz jr who has already lots of experience on this car, that by the way is a much quicker f1 car thats unfamiliar to gasly. Mid-season changes are make or break chances. Gasly fails, kvyat is there again.

    1. Pierre is going to have to match sainz jr

      Being as close to SAI as KVY would suffice though

    2. They already are losing Sainz to Renault. It would surprise me if they’d find someone else to partner Kvyat than Gasly.

  30. Interested to see how Gasly gets on in F1 as I have to say that i’ve not really been that blown away by what i’ve seen of him in the lower categories.

    Took him what 3 years to win a race at the WSBR/GP2 level & all through last year Antonio Giovinazzi (His rookie team mate) was the far more impressive of the 2 (Especially given the fact he was a rookie at that level) & was only a few points behind in the final championship standings.

  31. For the fun facts and stats, the consultant jobs at the RTBF next to Gaetan Vigneron will be highly convoited. He has much better success than Sky trying to (re)promote DiResta to a seat. His last 3 consultants have been graduated to F1 (D’Ambrosio, Vandoorne and now Gasly). Who’s next ?

  32. With 3 Frenchmen (probably 4 with leclerc – I know, he’s from Monaco…) on the grid next year, and a french grand Prix return… It’s a whole lot of news for us in France. And to top it off, liberty media has specifically demanded that the french race will be free to air on tf1 and current right holders canal + (pay TV) will have to show 3 GPs free to air next year, and more 2019…. Maybe the sport will end up becoming something again here.

  33. I think this is possibly a bit too much. Brining in a driver that is totally new to the sport and replacing for an entire weekend over a driver in his 4th year. I think it is unlikely that he will instantly appear better than Kvyat and I also don’t think 1 race will be enough to decide this. Kvyat has had more than 1 solid race and I’m talking about this year. As recently as Italy, Kvyat looked better than Sainz over the weekend. He’s also looked better than Sainz in 4 other races this year too and in my opinion, both of Sainz’s incidents looked worse than any of his. But I won’t deny that Sainz is much better. But it is very questionable if Gasly will be better than Kvyat and I seriously doubt he will be instantly. And that is what makes me wonder why it is worth replacing him for a whole weekend. Why not just let him have one practice session in several of the remaining race weekends? In a way, this will be more experience than a single race. But then, maybe this will happen too. But if it does, it is really limiting Kvyat’s time which could affect his performance even more. Now I say this, I sort of can understand why a whole weekend may be better. But I still would have thought that Kvyat should get to race for the rest of the season as he is one of the main 2 drivers!

    I think the team should keep Kvyat next year if they are bringing in a rookie. While they have risked 2 new drivers before, it is unlikely to work out quite as well as it did in 2015. So even though Kvyat certainly isn’t great, he still does show to be good at times. His bad luck has certainly affected the amount of time he may have potentially been able to get some better results. I still think pairing him with a rookie will be better than getting 2 new drivers.

    1. I think I have misunderstood this but it doesn’t seem very clear.

      “Daniil Kvyat has been dropped from Toro Rosso’s driver line-up for this weekend’s Malaysian Grand Prix, the team has announced.”

      “The 21-year-old from Rouen in France will make his F1 debut at Sepang this weekend.”

      “Toro Rosso said Gasly will take Kvyat’s place “for the next grands prix”.”

      Am I missing something here? I can’t work out anything implying that he’s being replaced for the rest of the season. The 3 parts I’ve highlighted to me really do make it look like it is just for one race.

      If this is the case and they are planning to keep Kvyat next year, then I certainly think this is unreasonable. Possibly replace Kvyat at the last race if his poor form continues but for this many races? Even though Kvyat hasn’t been performing well the whole time, I still don’t see why he should get dropped out when it is incredibly likely he will be racing next year.

      1. “Toro Rosso said Gasly will take Kvyat’s place “for the next grands prix”.”

        “Grands prix” is plural. I don’t know if that is an accurate version of what was said/written but, if it is, then it means more than one.

        1. I did think I could be misunderstanding something. I still don’t think it was very clear, but now I have looked it up elsewhere, I understand it now.

        2. I don’t know if that is an accurate version of what was said/written

          It is. I think they’re being deliberately ambiguous.

      2. What I read, Gasly will be driving the TR at Suzuka too, possible even more.

      3. “This is a great opportunity for me. I feel as ready as I can be, having had to be prepared for anything in my role as Red Bull Racing’s third driver this year. I will do my best to perform well with Scuderia Toro Rosso during these coming races.”

        1. Yes, I basically at first assumed that this meant this next race and that he was certainly confirmed for next year. The way this has been written certainly didn’t make things that clear. But when I have looked it up on other sites and seen more information, it does there.

  34. Sergey Sirotkin wil be promoted from Renault to TR for 2018 season as a full time driver.
    Russiain GP without russina driver…and Bernie still has some influence (plus personal contact with Putin).
    otherwise 0 visitors on russian GP2018.

  35. So assuming Kvyat is done, who will partner Gasly in 2018? There is no logical replacement. Discuss.

    1. I think it will certainly be a big risk to bring in another rookie. The team took a risk that luckily payed off when they got Sainz and Verstappen in 2015. I don’t think they will be this lucky again.

      I am certain Kvyat and a rookie will be better than a pair of rookies. Kvyat will very likely be better to start with and his experience should also help the team quite a lot too. And maybe with a fresh start against an unexperienced driver, Kvyat won’t feel as under pressure as he did so he may well perform much better. I don’t think he has maximized his potential in his f1 career yet. He is still very young and he most certainly wasn’t bad in 2015. I see no reason why it isn’t possible for things to turn around with a fresh start. If his up and down performance continues, then that will be enough I think.

  36. Torpedoed. In motocross, Honda maintains the highest demeanor and decor standards of all the factory teams. Besides crashing his brains out, I’m sure Honda have heard Kvyat’s radio chatter. I actually liked him ok cept for his ballistics. Sorry to see him go.

  37. Now, I’m gonna say kvyat is in my opinion the worst driver of 2017, even a driver like palmer who has also been unlucky several times, and underperformed heavily most of the times, managed to get some points at last, so I’d be a bit sorry if he leaves f1 since he maybe could do better than this season (however there’s too few spots for drivers in f1, that’s for sure); stroll has improved since the disaster start, ericson and wherlein realistically don’t have a car to fight with anyone and wherlein has even done a good job early in the year, before the team got even further back; the only one who has done almost nothing with a relatively decent team is kvyat, so yes, I find this a good decision.

    1. You can have your own opinion, but if Kvyat hadn’t had his bad luck, I think he could have scored more points than he did in Australia, some in China, Monaco, Canada and Baku. 4 out of 5 of these races, he had to retire down to no fault of his own when it looked quite possible it was a points scoring opportunity. He won’t have got many but I do think he will have managed to get around 18 points in total by now if it wasn’t for all this. He also did a better as recently as Italy which certainly still shows he’s got some pace. And Sainz and Kvyta have been very even in qualifying too. I would rate Kvyat very close to the back, but certainly above Palmer and I actually believe he is better than he’s been able to show. But he also has cost himself the race result a few times as well as making lots of mistakes. But I still think that just Palmers recent result isn’t enough to show he is better than Kvyat.

  38. Topless Robot Nun
    27th September 2017, 2:51

    Kinda weird situation, I seem to remember in Kvyat’s first few races with RBR he turned in a credible performance, including a second place finish ahead of Ricciardo. I guess sometimes a driver just doesn’t gel with his team. As mentioned by someone else above, Capelli springs to mind – shone in a March, floundered in a Ferrari. Could mention Perez at McLaren too, or Kovaleinen at McLaren, or Andretti at McLaren… hmm.

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