Daniil Kvyat is hopeful that he and his Scuderia Toro Rosso team can put together a complete weekend at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya this weekend, with the Russian aiming for only his second top ten result of the season on Sunday.
Kvyat feels that he has shown good pace at times across the season, with strong qualifying performances and race outings, but never at the same time, meaning he has only scored the solitary point in 2019, which came in the season-opening Australian Grand Prix in March.
The Spanish Grand Prix this weekend offers the next chance of a good performance, although Kvyat knows the challenging nature of the track makes it difficult to put together a strong lap when it matters.
“Barcelona is a circuit that everyone knows quite well, but that doesn’t mean it’s an easy track in terms of driving and finding the right setup on the car,” said Kvyat. “It’s quite a challenge to put together a really good lap here.
“I’m interested to see how our car will perform. It’s true we went well here in pre-season testing, but this does not mean we’ll have less challenges. I hope we can have a weekend where everything comes together for us, running competitively in all sessions and the race.
“So far this year, sometimes we have been strong in Quali and other times we have been strong in the race, so we just need a weekend where everything clicks.”
Kvyat knows everything has to be perfect this weekend in Barcelona if Toro Rosso are to maximise their potential and score points as everyone up and down the grid has extensive knowledge of the track due to its use during pre-season testing. He also knows that a slight change in wind direction can affect the way the car handles, especially around the high-speed turns.
“The track can be frustrating, because just a slight change in wind direction or temperature can have a big impact on how the car behaves from one session to the next,” said the Russian. “That’s why you really need to be on top of your game, because with everyone knowing Barcelona so well, the gaps between the drivers and teams will be very small…even smaller!
“Every part of our performance has to be perfect. The challenge here comes from the fact there are all sorts of corners and naturally the car has to perform well in all of them. Everyone will be bringing some sort of update for this race and in our case, I hope it will work as expected and bring us a good performance gain.
“We will just work race by race.”
