Daniil Kvyat was one of the stars of Qualifying for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix as the Russian put his Scuderia Toro Rosso into sixth place on the grid.
Kvyat survived brushing the wall during Q2 to advance into Q3 where he was able to show good speed despite having only one set of tyres available to him, but his run was good enough to qualify on the third row of the grid, his best result since returning to Formula 1 at the beginning of the season.
He reckons the Baku City Circuit is designed for ‘brave drivers’ and it was up to him to deliver the kind of pace Toro Rosso showed during free practice, particularly when team-mate Alexander Albon was eliminated from Qualifying after Q2.
“It was a good Qualifying, I had a great lap in Q3 – it gives you great satisfaction to put in a good lap, especially at a track like this as it’s a circuit for brave drivers,” said Kvyat. “Conditions were not ideal for anyone because we missed out on track time yesterday, but I generally don’t need a lot of laps to find good pace.
“I brushed the wall on one of my laps, but you need to have big balls around this track to get the best time.”
Kvyat says he will need to keep a cool head if he is to convert this strong starting position into a strong result on Sunday, with the Russian hopeful of avoiding any chaos that may occur during the race and scoring a good haul of points for the team. He has yet to better ninth in any race with Toro Rosso in any of his three stints with the team.
“Tomorrow’s a long race and we’ll try and put everything together – I think we have a chance for a strong result,” said the Russian.
“The race can be very unpredictable, so I’ll keep a cool head and do the best job I can.”
