Returning Scuderia Toro Rosso driver Daniil Kvyat hailed the United States Grand Prix as “my best race of the season for sure!”
The Russian, who was replaced by Red Bull Racing junior Pierre Gasly for the last two rounds of the championship, returned to his seat in the USA and put in a stellar performance, just when it was needed.
“I’m very happy about the result and I did everything I could to bring the point’s home. I really enjoyed myself, it was a very clean and enjoyable race and overall a good job by the team.
“We kept it together with limited running and we still managed to get into the points.
“It’s a pity I couldn’t defend from Massa, but I had less grip with my soft tyre and we had some energy deployment issues, so my straight-line speed was down.”
Kvyat claimed tenth place, and his first point since the 2017 Spanish Grand Prix back in May on Sunday, having barely put a foot wrong all weekend, and doing his best to give Toro Rosso and Red Bull a headache over their line-up for the next round in Mexico.
The Russian admitted he returned to racing with no expectations, but motivated to do the best he could, and that outlook appeared to work for the 23-year-old.
“I came here with a fresh mindset; we shuffled some things in the team to give everyone some new motivation and some new focuses.
“Everything has been working fantastically this weekend and the race was just great.”
Kvyat certainly did himself no harm with that performance, but will now have a wait to find out whether he will be racing for the squad at the 2017 Mexican Grand Prix this weekend.
