Kvyat 27 years old | From great talent to Red Bull Racing's Torpedo

At the age of 19, Daniil Kvyat had already made his Formula 1 debut for Toro Rosso and with a switch to Red Bull Racing one year later, a great future seemed in store for him. On his 27th birthday, however, the Russian can be found on the sidelines as Alpine's reserve driver.

Russian talent

After titles in Formula Renault 2.0 Alps and GP3 Series Helmut Marko thought it was time to promote the young Russian driver to F1. Kvyat scored points in his first race, so Marko seemed to be right. Over the whole year, Kyvat's Toro Rosso teammate Jean-Eric Vergne scored almost three times as many points (8) as him, so the Frenchman was left stunned at the end of the season when Kyvat was promoted and not him.

Once again, Vergne was passed over for the Red Bull Racing seat. Where a year earlier Daniel Ricciardo had been preferred to Vergne, this time it was the younger Kvyat. The Russian made a good debut for the Red Bull team and even finished second in Hungary. At the end of the season he had three points more than Ricciardo.

Crashing with Red Bull

However, things quickly went downhill for Kvyat, who in addition to fast laps in qualifying and decent races, also made special moves on the track. One race he could stand on the podium and the next race he caused a huge crash. This happened to him a little too often at the beginning of 2016, so he was replaced by Max Verstappen after his blunder in Russia.

Where the Dutchman would take a win for Red Bull in his first race, Kvyat only picked up a few more points for Toro Rosso. Things got worse in 2017, and he was pushed aside for Pierre Gasly. He had to make a brief appearance in America because Carlos Sainz had made an early switch to Renault, but in Mexico Toro Rosso even chose Brendon Hartley.

Twice the end in F1

In 2018, Kvyat was given a simulator role at Ferrari and his F1 career seemed to be over, but when Red Bull's training pool appeared to have dried up, Marko still drummed him back up for Toro Rosso in 2019. He rewarded that confidence with a podium at the German Grand Prix. In 2020, he stayed with the team that now continued under the name of AlphaTauri, but Kvyat had to sit idly by as his teammate drove further and further away from him.

So in 2021, Kvyat was once again replaced at AlphaTauri, this time by the young talent Yuki Tsunoda. Kvyat has not completely left Formula 1, because with a reserve role at Alpine he could still race in 2021.