An incensed Daniil Kvyat has lashed out against the Canadian Grand Prix stewards and branded Formula One a “stupid f***ing circus” following his double penalty for failing to follow the correct start procedure.
Kvyat stalled his Scuderia Toro Rosso on the grid at the start of the formation lap and dropped behind every other car. Under current rules, that meant Kvyat couldn’t re-take his original position on the grid and must in fact, start last or from the pit lane.
At the end of the first lap Kvyat was in the top 10 and it became apparent that he didn’t follow the correct procedure. He was penalised with a drive-through penalty, a decision later decided by the FIA stewards to be insufficient; they later handed him a further 10-second time penalty.
On hearing the news of his additional penalty, Kvyat let loose his frustrations over the team radio and directed abuse at the stewards.
“I was angry with what’s going on,” said Kvyat. “Another penalty, like it’s a joke, right? I mean, what are we doing? And I get two points on my license which again is a stupid rule. Are we taxi drivers here? Or F1 drivers? I don’t understand this. It’s a circus, a stupid f**ing circus!
“I will go and talk to Charlie. It’s f***ing… It’s annoying, it’s really annoying me. A simple job, they can’t do it properly.
“What I know is that our team manager was arguing for 10 laps with the FIA we shouldn’t get another penalty. They said, ‘no sorry, we have this’. It’s like football. He says there is a penalty, then he runs back, watches the video, and says ‘Ah, it’s not a penalty, cancel it’. That’s what, more or less, happened today.”
It was a frustrating day for Toro Rosso as both drivers retired from the race – Carlos Sainz in a lap one crash and Kvyat retired during a botched pit-stop that caused his engine to overheat.
Kvyat has said however, that he will wait until the next race, in Baku, to talk to race director Charlie Whiting.
“Now, I will go with our team manager maybe it’s better to go in Baku because now the heat is up for me, I don’t want to say anything wrong to anyone. I’m not sure if it’s really Charlie, I’m not sure it’s Charlie. I don’t know. I want to understand first of all who does this job.”
