Tost: ‘Kvyat was often faster than Ricciardo’

AlphaTauri boss, Franz Tost has said he is happy with Daniil Kvyat and Pierre Gasly despite their demotions from theRed Bullsenior team.

Tost feels that there are some distinct similarities between the two current AlphaTauri racers as they both were called up to Red Bull seats when the team had little choice but to do so.

As a result, he is of the belief that the call-ups too early for Kvyat and Gasly but they are both still talented drivers.

In Kvyat’s case, Tost pointed out Kvyat’s performances against Daniel Ricciardo as a key indicator of the Russian’s driving ability.

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“We actually had no choice with either of them,”Tost told Formel Austria.

“In the case of Daniil, Sebastian Vettel left for Ferrari so he [Kvyat] had to make the move to Red Bull.

“But he only had one season in Formula 1 behind him and he also came to the championship directly from GP3 and this is already a huge challenge.

“Kvyat performed well. If you look at pure, natural speed, you will see that Kvyat was often faster than Ricciardo.

“He is very, very fast, just the circumstances at Red Bull Racing did not work out.

“In my opinion, the transition to Red Bull happened quite early for them. It was similar for Pierre.

“The start of the season was not easy for him, he got into accidents and as a result failed to show his true speed.

“But we are very pleased with both of our drivers.”

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