Daniil Kvyat admitted that his crash in Formula 1‘s Free Practice 2 session for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix can be attributed to him exceeding the limit.
Kvyat’s heavily disrupted Friday afternoon started with a problem with the steering wheel on his Scuderia Toro Rosso car and ended in the barrier on the exit of Turn 7.
The Russian did still finish a competitive sixth on Friday afternoon, 1.305 seconds shy of fastest man Charles Leclerc, on a day where running was sparse throughout the field.
Kvyat explained that the short track time meant that he had to quickly find pace around the Baku City Circuit, but went too far in doing so.
“It was quite a strange day,” said Kvyat.
“There was no running in Free Practice 1 besides an installation lap, then in Free Practice 2 something happened with the steering wheel, so we had to take a break to fix it.
“This meant we lost some important running and, consequently, I had to find the limits of the track very quickly on my next run.”
Kvyat went on to explain that he locked up and lost the rear of car, similarly to Leclerc at the same corner, but could not salvage the situation in the same way the Scuderia Ferrari driver had managed.
Encouragingly for Toro Rosso and engine supplier Honda, Kvyat said that the car felt “very good” prior to his incident. Team-mate Alexander Albon also made the top 10 in Free Practice 2, 0.039s away from Kvyat in eighth.
Honda has brought the Spec 2 power unit to Baku for both Toro Rosso and senior side Red Bull Racing, with the Japanese marque set to check the Russian’s unit for any damage sustained in the incident.
“Unfortunately, I locked up and had an oversteer moment which led to some contact with the wall,” Kvyat added.
“On the positive side, the feeling of the car was very good before the accident, so we’ll keep pushing to improve even further tomorrow.”
