Give me a good car and I’ll fight for the title - Daniil Kvyat

Daniil Kyat

Give me a good car and I’ll fight for the title - Kvyat

Parting plea as Russian lays down determination to return in 2022

Will Gray

Tuesday 8 December 2020 13:49

Daniel Kvyat has sent a parting message to Formula 1’s top team bosses – “give me the opportunity and I will be able to fight for world championships”.

Russian Kvyat, who made his F1 debut in 2014 and raced for top team Red Bull for one-and-a-half seasons, believes this weekend will be his last in F1 for now as he is not expecting to be retained by AlphaTauri for next season.

But after having his “best weekend of the year” in Bahrain he promised he is not finished yet and said: “It’s a tough sport, competition here is tough and also the politics are in play, it’s normal.

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“I still feel I have a lot to give in F1. I know that if the opportunity comes I will be able to fight for world championships, that’s for sure, so it’s just about timing. Sometimes the timing was great in my career, sometimes it was very poor.

“It’s very good that I managed to show this very strong weekend now, at the end of the year, so it is fresh in people's memory and I can have a go to come back with somebody in 2022.”

Kvyat has not finished higher than fourth this season and has struggled to match the performances of team-mate Pierre Gasly, who achieved a surprise but well-fought victory in the Italian Grand Prix earlier this season.

Kvyat's seventh place finish on Sunday may not look like a great achievement, especially as rivals Racing Point and Renault filled the podium with a Mercedes pitstop blunder and an unlucky puncture taking the world champions out the picture.

But after his best qualifying position of the season and a battling but ultimately limited race performance, Kvyat feels his efforts around the Sakhir Outer Track should make people take note.

He added: “It was a very strong race, the strongest race of the year for me [but] the luck wasn’t there, just the timing. Some other guys, they risked, but we didn’t have a chance to risk, we had to follow our plan.

“I am very happy with my driving. Of course, when you see Racing Point and Renault on the podium and we know we’ve been quicker, I feel a bit disappointed not to have an opportunity to fight for it.

“But we did everything right, it was one of those days when it just didn’t quite work but we still did a solid job to bring home solid points.”