Daniil Kvyat says he extracted everything from his Scuderia Toro Rosso STR14 at Silverstone as the Russian went from seventeenth on the grid to score two championship points from ninth place at the end of the race.
Kyvat admitted that he struggled to find a rhythm around the Silverstone circuit but with “a few improvements” on Saturday he “clicked with the car” come race day.
“I’m very happy with the race today,” said Kvyat. “To be honest, I didn’t have too many expectations today starting from the back of the grid. All weekend I didn’t really get into the rhythm and I was struggling a bit with the balance, but when it mattered most today I managed to extract everything from the car.
“We found a few improvements yesterday [Saturday] with the setup direction and I think we managed to correct it and I just clicked with the car.”
Kvyat benefitted from both Haas F1 Team drivers Kevin Magnussen and Romain Grosjean colliding on lap one but had to fight his way by the fast-starting Lance Stroll later in the race.
Further positions came for Kvyat in the second half of the race courtesy of Lando Norris, Nico Hülkenberg and his team-mate Alex Albon, all of whom had their individual challenges.
He was unable to get the better of Kimi Räikkönen for eighth, but the result comes after two poor races for the Russian and sees him close in on Sergio Pérez for thirteenth in the drivers’ standings.
“I had a good battle with Kimi at the end for P8, which was fun, but I didn’t have enough laps in the end to make a move. It’s good to get two more points on the board and it was important to bounce back after the past couple of races.”
