MOSCOW, October 25. /TASS/. Russia’s Formula One racer Daniil Kvyat will not return to Team Toro Rosso and his future will be decided after this season’s last Grand Prix in Abu Dhabi, Germany’s Auto Bild reported on Wednesday citing Red Bull’s Helmut Marko.
Scuderia Toro Rosso officially announced on Monday that its drivers’ line up for the Mexican GP this weekend would be formed by pairing Pierre Gasly and Brendon Hartley, while leaving Russia’s Kvyat out of the race.
"Kvyat will not return to the team," Auto Bild reported citing Marko, the motorsport consultant of Team Red Bull, as saying. "We believe that he would not make a turnaround."
"Gasly and Hartley will be racing from now on and we will make evaluations after Abu Dhabi," Marko added.
Red Bull’s farm team Toro Rosso earlier excluded Kvyat from the Malaysian and Japanese GPs, substituting him with French racer Pierre Gasly. Kvyat, however, raced for Toro Rosso last weekend at the US Grand Prix in Austin, alongside New Zealand’s Hartley as the team’s other driver Carlos Sainz Jr. moved to partner with Team Renault and Gasly competed in the Super Formula series that weekend. Kvyat finished 10th in the United States bringing his team one point.
The 23-year-old Russian driver entered the Formula One world in 2014 racing for Toro Rosso and in 2015 he stepped up to the senior squad joining Red Bull. Last season, however, he was replaced by Max Verstappen in Red Bull and was demoted to Scuderia Toro Rosso again.
Kvyat was nicknamed the ‘Russian torpedo’ after his risky overtake over Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel in one of the first turns at the 2016 Grand Prix in China. This is when German four-time F1 Champion Vettel argued with Kvyat saying that the Russian passed him on the inside like "a torpedo" barely avoiding a possible three-car collision.
Several weeks later both drivers dueled again and it was at Kvyat’s home Grand Prix in Sochi. The Russian rear-ended Vettel’s Ferrari twice at the onset of the race sending the German crashing into a safety barrier. Kvyat received a penalty of pit lane stop-and-go for that incident and finished the race deep in 15th place.
Four days later after the Grand Prix in Russia’s Sochi, Red Bull’s management announced that Kvyat would be racing again for Toro Rosso and his place in Red Bull went to 20-year-old driver Max Verstappen.
Kvyat’s best result in his Formula One racing career was second place at the 2015 Hungarian Grand Prix and this season he is ranked 19th with five points.