Daniil Kvyat become the first retirement of the European Grand Prix after only a handful of laps after a rear suspension issue on his Scuderia Toro Rosso STR11 forced him into the pits.
The Russian had gone into the race around the Baku Street Circuit high in confidence having started from sixth on the grid, but quickly found himself falling down the order, and having made a switch from the Supersoft to the Soft Pirelli tyre early in the race, he returned to the pits and was pulled into the garage to retire not long after.
Kvyat admitted his disappointment to see his afternoon ended so early on, but will take some positives away from the Azerbaijan circuit having shown a good turn of speed in qualifying in a car he felt handled very well.
“Quite a disappointing day, as I was only able to race for a few laps before retiring because of an issue with the rear suspension,” said Kvyat. “The car became difficult to handle at the beginning of the race and even though we had quite a decent first lap, in the end we had to stop – it’s a real pity, but that’s life, this is part of racing.
“We need to investigate what happened and understand the issue, but we will definitely keep on pushing and fighting. We remain positive as the handling of the car has been very good this whole weekend, so the future looks promising and hopefully those enjoyable races will come soon.
“I will cancel today out of my mind and all we need to do is carry on working like we have done until yesterday, because everything was looking great before the race.”
