Daniel Kvyat confirmed at STR for 2014

Who saw that one coming?

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/110783

 

Where does this leave Da Costa? Are they just going to do away with him like so many of the others?

Big risk to take as he is only 19 can't help feel Da Costa has been hard done by.

 

Christ! He's had a better season than Da Costa but he's in a less competitive series. It shouldn't be that much of a shock given Sainz Jr was tipped despite being thrashed by Kvyat this year, but I thought Da Costa was a shoe-in. I wonder if Da Costa's awful weekend just gone ultimately cost him.

I did wonder why Da Costa was driving for Carlin and not Arden in the FR3.5 tests, he must've been dropped from the program.

 

Body blow for Da Costa. Shame. I wanted to see what he could do.

Don't know a lot about Kvyat. His record looks decent enough, but i don't really think of GP3 as a suitable stepping stone to F1. It's certainly a daring choice.

 

Wow! Kvyat's had an excellent year but GP3 and F3 are mid-level championships. Red Bull are taking a big risk here - at least Bottas had 15 FP1 sessions to prepare. It would be really harsh if da Costa has been dropped from the program. Other Red Bull youngsters have had worse results and remained on the program.



The article below was published this morning. Notice the bit at the end:

 

Silverstone Young Driver Test
1. Ricciardo - 1:32.972 (Day 2)
2. Sainz - 1:33.016 (Day 2)
3. Vernge - 1:33.647 (Day 3)
4. Cecotto - 1:34.193 (Day 1)
5. Kvyat - 1:35.281 (Day 3)

Obviously fuel loads could be different but Kvyat is the slowest of those who drove for Toro Rosso (and excluding Caterham and Marussia drivers, the only driver who was slower than Kvyat was Kimiya Sato in the Sauber). Also....

[video=youtube;KIAGct-jjSU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIAGct-jjSU[/video]

 

I think Kvyat has been the best GP3 driver this year, he's the only guy to win two feature races (the ones that count given the reverse grid makes the sprints a lottery) and ART appear to have had the best car.

Just been looking back at his results. Last year he just missed out on the FR2.0 title to Vandoorne. He won 7 races despite only having 3 poles. Vandoorne had six poles, four wins and ten points more than Kvyat. Pretty impressive given how highly Vandoorne is rated and that Kvyat's two years younger. There was no one else of note in the series though.

The season before he was 3rd in FR2.0 (two wins two poles), behind Frijns and Sainz. Vandoorne was fifth behind Will Stevens who's looked pretty impressive in FR3.5 this year.

So he's held his own against talented, often considerably older drivers (Sainz being the exception). I don't think they planned to promote him yet given he didn't run in Silverstone at the young drivers' tests*. But his strong end to the GP3 season and Da Costa having a shocker seems to have forced their hand. I hope this isn't the end of Da Costa's career, people talk of Red Bull ruining young careers but Da Costa's the first of real quality to be cast aside, hopefully he can bounce back.

*Just seen Forza's post, turns out he did run at the YDT.

 

Lots of drivers have done well in F1 despite skipping the 2nd-tier categories.

Kimi is just one example.

If they're good enough, may as well put them straight into F1.

 

clearly Money is the motivation here. So next year we may have 2 young inexperienced paying Russians. great god help us if petrov gets a seat at marussia

 

Looks to me more that da Costa's had a bad season (he should definitely have come into F1 this season - which is perhaps one reason why HRT will be missed) and Red Bull just wanted to reward someone who's had a good season. See also, Alguersuari.

 

At least Petrov is experienced......

 

Some things do point toward him being a pay driver but at least he has had success at various lower levels. I think he could actually go pretty well so I look forward to seeing what he can do

 

He's only done like a season of GP3 and a season of FRenault

 

Better than Sirotkin at least

 

if only Zlobin got into F1...

 

Shame there are people out there trying to kill him

 

Shame there've been so many comments (not on here) about Kvyat buying his seat. I doubt there'd be as much scepticism if Sainz had got the drive, and Kvyat's dismantled him as team mate this year.

 

I may have misread some quotes but Kvyat may get a FP1 drive this season, potential at Austin.

 

In an interesting twist, da Costa will replace Kvyat for next month's Macau GP. I can't find out any more though (I've read too many autosport news stories this month). Presumably Kvyat will be doing a speedy transition programme like Sirotkin.

 

Presumably he needs the mileage in order to get a superlicense, possibly explaining the Macau GP switch.