Kvyat pleased with 'comfortable' first day of testing

Daniil Kvyat enjoys a 'comfortable' first day of pre-season testing for AlphaTauri, finding pace in the second half of the day.

Pre-season testing has been condensed down from eight days to six for 2020 and some teams reacted by setting fast times early while others kept focus on long runs and data gathering before ramping up the pace.

AlphaTauri did the latter. Not looking too far away in the morning, the team were still not showing well when directly compared to others, but Kvyat was released of his shackles in the afternoon to go fifth of the fifteen runners - the Russian only two-tenths and one position away from Max Verstappen in the sister Red Bull team.

“I think it was a pretty comfortable day, we didn’t encounter any big issues and we ran reliably," said Kvyat. "The car felt like home pretty much straight away. We’ve completed the routine checks at the start of the day which made our morning a bit slow, but it’s necessary for the team at the first test.

"Once that was done we were able to get some good laps in and understand the new car a bit better. We also worked on setup items, some of which you wouldn’t really try on a race weekend.

"It’s hard to comment too much on the progress made over winter because it’s the first time we properly run the car and you certainly need more time to find the sweet spot.”

Kvyat will step out of the car for Thursday as teammate Pierre Gasly has his chance to get to grips with the AT01.

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