SOCHI, May 1. /TASS/. Russian racer from team Red Bull expressed his apologies to Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel after hitting the German driver twice in the rear of his car on the opening lap of the 2016 F1 Russia Grand Prix in Sochi.
"Rear brakes of my car stalled in the second turn," Kvyat said. "Unfortunately, it was too hard to stop the car at that moment."
"In the third high-speed turn everyone began braking their cars to my surprise and Vettel was in front of me again. I hit him in the back and he had to withdraw from the race. I do apologize to him."
Kvyat received a penalty of 10 seconds stop in the pit lane for causing an emergency situation at the track.
Qualified on Saturday in the 8th position, Kvyat was aggressive during the opening lap on Sunday and hit four-time F1 Champion Sebastian Vettel in the back of his car twice forcing the German driver out of the race.
After driving a scooter himself with a race marshal sitting behind him to the team box, Vettel told journalists that "I just saw the footage, no way I could have done anything else."
Following the second impact with Kvyat’s car Vettel crashed in the rail damaging his Ferrari and was forced to retire from the race.
Team Mercedes German pilot Nico Rosberg secured on Sunday his record 7th straight Formula One win after leaving the rest of the drivers behind on a sunny afternoon in Russia’s resort city of Sochi.
Rosberg clocked the best lap time of 1 minute 35.417 seconds in the qualification session on Saturday to take the pole position and starting from the top of the grid line on Sunday he maintained the strong lead throughout the race to take the top step of the Sochi GP podium.
His Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton, who won the two previous Sochi GP races, finished in the second place behind Rosberg with over 12 seconds gap.
Ferraris’ Kimi Raikkonen finished in the third place after team Mercedes pilots.