Daniil Kvyat has opened up on the rivalry that he shared with Daniel Ricciardo during their stint together at Red Bull.
Kvyat joined the Milton Keynes-based squad in 2015, having spent his rookie season in Formula 1 the year before with sister team Toro Rosso.
In the 2015 standings, Kvyat finished ahead of Ricciardo in what was a difficult year for Red Bull.
Ricciardo, at the time, was seen as the lead driver at the team as he out-paced four-time World Champion Sebastian Vettel in his first year with the squad in 2014.
“Daniel Ricciardo at the time was like a big superstar, and when I came into the team, he just beat Vettel so there was a lot of hype around him in the team and everywhere,” Kvyat said on the Track Limits podcast.
“So everyone was like, ‘yeah, he’s the man to beat now. He’s probably the best driver on the grid right now.’
“That’s what they were telling me. So for me, it was huge. Now it’s different, of course, but back then he was top notch. So for me was a big year, 2015, when I just got into a Red Bull.”
Their stint as team-mates wouldn’t last long, however, as shortly after the start of the 2016 campaign, Kvyat was dropped in favour of Max Verstappen.
Kvyat dabbled in F1 for several more years before exiting the series completely at the end of 2020.
During his career, he claimed three podium finishes, with two of them coming during his Red Bull stint.
Ricciardo remained at Red Bull until 2018 before spending time with Renault and McLaren, and is now back at Red Bull as a third driver.
Known for his comic personality, Ricciardo’s antics were “a bit too much” for Kvyat – but the Russian says that the Australian was a fierce competitor.
“My impression of him was he was the man at the time, very funny personality so very attractive for media – bit too much for me – but no, we got along well,” Kvyat said.
“There was a lot of rivalry between us, of course. The beginning was like he was taking things easy, then when he saw that, okay, I have pace.
“Then [he] started also to stay in [the] motorhome until midnight like me and we were both there sitting, engineers were gone already and we were still there studying the data seeing who would go home later.
“But no, I rate him very good. I think those cars, they suited him up perfectly also at the time, had good understanding of tyres. Those tyres were a bit different, they were very fragile.
“He’s been a very strong rival, I think pushing me to the limit.”
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