Franz Tost felt Daniil Kvyat was often too aggressive at the beginning of Grand Prix and took too many risks, which led to him being put under unnecessary pressure.
Kvyat was axed from the Red Bull programme following the United States Grand Prix having been demoted back to Scuderia Toro Rosso during the 2016 season from Red Bull Racing, and he was outperformed and overshadowed by Carlos Sainz Jr. throughout his time back with the Faenza-based squad.
He was involved in two first-lap incidents in 2017, colliding with and eliminating Fernando Alonso and Max Verstappen in the Austrian Grand Prix, before crashing out team-mate Sainz at Silverstone at Becketts, and Tost felt these incidents, coupled with the penalty points he racked up, left him under pressure.
“Sometimes he was too aggressive at the beginning of the race,” said Tost to the official Formula 1 website. “The first corner was his weak point.
“He wanted too much in the first 100 metres – success by any means! That puts you under pressure – unnecessary pressure – and that never works.”
Despite seeing the Russian leave his team, Tost feels there is still potential for Kvyat to return to Formula 1 with his self-confidence restored to show everyone again what Red Bull initially saw in him.
“I am still convinced that Daniil has a very high natural speed,” insisted Tost. “He was sometimes even faster than Daniel Riccardo [at Red Bull], but somehow last year and this year he couldn’t show the potential that is within him.
“He was involved in many incidents – but in his defence I also have to say that he had many reliability issues and that didn’t help build up confidence. Being the victim of too many incidents killed the performance he would have been able to show.
“Maybe a short break – to get organised again – and probably we will see Daniil back at his usual performance level with another team.”
