Daniil Kvyat felt he was unlucky to miss out on an appearance in the third phase of qualifying for the Monaco Grand Prix, as he felt his final lap would have been good enough only to abort it due to Stoffel Vandoorne’s crash.
The Scuderia Toro Rosso driver was unable to follow team-mate Carlos Sainz Jr through into the top ten shootout, finishing just outside in eleventh, but will move up two places on the grid thanks to the grid penalties for McLaren Honda Formula 1 Team duo Jenson Button and Vandoorne, and will have a free choice of tyre at the start of the race.
Whereas Kvyat knows what happened during qualifying was ultimately out of his control, he feels he has a good chance of points on Sunday, especially as he is starting much higher up the grid than he did in Spain two weeks ago.
“I was unlucky with the crash that happened during the final moments of Q2, how frustrating!” said Kvyat. “We’ve looked very promising all weekend, so it was a shame to miss out on Q3. I think we could’ve got through if the session hadn’t been yellow-flagged.
“However, realising that I will start tomorrow’s race from P9 because other drivers have been penalised makes the chances of finishing in the points even higher. I know it’s a different circuit, but in Barcelona I started last and finished in the top ten, so we’re not in such a bad situation here!
“There’s no point being upset, we just need to keep our heads down and work hard tonight to prepare the race well. Tomorrow we will try to go forward and hopefully fight for good points – anything can happen here in Monaco!”
