The Sebastian Vettel F1 'torpedo' feud with rival that launched Max Verstappen's career

Sebastian Vettel and Max Verstappen talk at the Brazilian Grand Prix — Photo: © IMAGO

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The Sebastian Vettel 'torpedo' feud with rival that launched Max Verstappen's career

Sebastian Vettel's rant kickstarted Max Verstappen's career

Sam Cook Digital Journalist

Sports Journalist who has been covering motorsport since 2023

Friday 17 April 2026 20:54 Updated: 21:00

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10 years ago today, an iconic F1 moment happened which would kickstart Max Verstappen's career as a Red Bull star.

Verstappen's penultimate race as a Toro Rosso driver came at the Chinese Grand Prix in 2016. It was an uneventful event for the rising young talent, qualifying in ninth before then finishing in eighth.

But further up the grid, a fierce battle was igniting.

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Heading into turn one, Red Bull's Daniil Kvyat looked to make a move on four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel, a move that would put the German legend all out of shape heading into turn two, and he crashed into his team-mate and lost his front wing.

Vettel then recovered magnificently to finish up on the podium in second, with Kvyat in third.

But after the race, in the cooldown room, Vettel stormed up to Kvyat and launched a scathing assessment of the Russian's driving.

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Vettel and Kvyat's 'torpedo' cooldown room argument

"You asking about the start," Vettel said. "If I don't go to the left, you crash into us and we all three go out. No, not well, you came like a torpedo."

"Well, that's racing," Kvyat shrugged, batting off the German's complaints.

"Yeah it's racing but if I keep going the same line, we crash."

"Well don't keep going," Kvyat said, with a smirk on his face that may just have angered Vettel a little more.

"We crash if you do that." "But we didn't so..." "No, you didn't."

Having calmed down a little, Vettel started more giving Kvyat advice for future races, rather than attacking him for this one move, saying: "When you attack like crazy, you will damage your car. You were lucky this time."

"I'm on the podium, you're on the podium, so it's fine," Kvyat responded.

Martin Brundle summed the cooldown room exchange up nicely: "Rather like turn two, Kvyat held his own there."

The battle would not stop there, however.

Vettel v Kvyat again into turn one

After that race, F1 headed to Kvyat's homeland of Russia. Buoyed by just the second podium of his career in China, expectations were big for the Red Bull driver.

But, failing to listen to Vettel's warning, he tried to attack again heading into turn one, and took Vettel out of the race. He also damaged his own car significantly and finished down in 15th.

Red Bull had seen enough. You don't go after a former Red Bull legend unless you have the pace to match the frontrunners consistently.

It's unlikely that Vettel had any input on the decision given he was at Ferrari by this stage, but nonetheless Kvyat was replaced after an underwhelming start to 2016.

And who was his replacement? Another man who would go on to become a four-time world champion with Red Bull, Max Verstappen.

Verstappen replaces Kvyat

It's hard to believe that it's almost 10 years ago to the day that Verstappen became a Red Bull F1 driver.

But sure enough, after Kvyat's Russian GP shenanigans, he was replaced by the 18-year-old having only put 21 points on the board in the first four races of the year.

Verstappen made his Red Bull debut at the Spanish GP, the same race in which Kvyat returned to the Toro Rosso team.

The Dutchman put on a stunning display, claiming the grand prix victory on his first outing for the team after Mercedes' Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton had crashed into each other.

Verstappen held on to the race lead brilliantly despite the threat of Kimi Raikkonen behind, and became the youngest ever F1 grand prix victor.

This really was a defining moment in Verstappen's career, and he has since gone on to claim 70 more grand prix victories for Red Bull, and four world titles.

While his promotion to Red Bull would almost certainly have happened at some point anyway, Kvyat's turn one boldness at the Chinese GP followed by his shenanigans in Russia fast-tracked Verstappen's promotion, and he was a grand prix victor before he had even gotten used to the new uniform.

Kvyat would remain in F1 until 2020, adding one more podium in that time.

Written by

Sam Cook - Digital Journalist

Sam Cook is a talented young sports journalist and social media professional who now specialises in Formula 1, having previously worked as a football journalist and a local news reporter for a variety of different brands.

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F1 Red Bull Max Verstappen Sebastian Vettel Daniil Kvyat