Daniil Kvyat shares why he thinks Red Bull put 27-year-old in their car over him

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Russian driver Daniil Kvyat has explained why he thinks Red Bull replaced Pierre Gasly with Alex Albon instead of him.

Red Bull are notoriously brutal when it comes to their driver pairings and spent a long time trying to work out the best partnership.

Speaking to Formula 1’s official website, Daniil Kvyat explained why he thinks he didn’t get a second shot in the works car.

There’s currently a lot of speculation about the future of Sergio Perez.

The Mexican is just the latest driver to have to deal with the press talking about whether he’ll see out his contract which expires at the end of the season.

Red Bull’s line-up has been relatively settled in recent years compared to their past, with Max Verstappen the star man at the moment.

However, in the past both seats were up for grabs and Christian Horner and Helmut Marko regularly swapped drivers between Red Bull and AlphaTauri.

Daniil Kvyat was the man initially tasked with replacing four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel after his switch to Ferrari.

However, he lost his seat to Max Verstappen in 2016 and they haven’t looked back since.

Kvyat admits he nearly had another opportunity to join Red Bull three years later, but the team chose Alex Albon instead.

The Russian has explained why he thinks the team went with the Thai driver over him.

Red Bull chose Albon over Kvyat

Talking about his near-return to Red Bull, Kvyat said: “There were again a lot of rumours and talking behind the doors about me going back to Red Bull, and I would have really wanted that, of course.

“But there was other interest, other games going on behind and they needed to put my teammate Alex Albon in Gasly’s car at that time, so that’s the way it went.”

Kvyat returned to Toro Rosso in 2019 and watched Albon make the jump up to Red Bull to replace Pierre Gasly while he stayed with the sister team.

Albon had been driving well that year, but Kvyat had achieved the team’s best result in Germany, finishing on the podium.

The Thai driver made the step up, but like Kvyat and Gasly before him, could never really handle the pressure despite taking drastic measures to try and adapt.

Kvyat left AlphaTauri in 2020 while Albon ended up being Red Bull’s reserve driver, helping the likes of Yuki Tsunoda adapt to Formula 1.

Albon is now arguably reaching his peak at Williams and will be on the radar of several top teams when his contract expires at the end of this year.