10/01/2018
NEWS STORY
Ferrari has signed former Red Bull and Toro Rosso driver Daniil Kvyat as its development driver.
The announcement came via social media, as the Italian team, merely revealed: "Daniil Kvyat to become Scuderia Ferrari’s development driver."
Though dropped by Toro Rosso and the Red Bull programme after last year's Italian Grand Prix, Helmut Marko and Franz Tost both subsequently sang the Russian's praises, admitting that though he was fast and deserved a place in F1 he lacked consistency.
Ironically, he returned to Toro Rosso for the Suzuka event, replacing Pierre Gasly, who had replaced him, but even one of his stronger drives, which netted a further point, wasn't enough to change minds.
It is understood he subsequently had talks with Williams over the seat alongside Lance Stroll, but the Grove outfit appears to have opted for countryman Sergey Sirotkin and his sponsor's roubles.
Kvyat is no stranger to Ferrari having enjoyed a few brushes with Sebastian Vettel, not least the double impact at Sochi in 2016, which saw the Russian demoted from Red Bull to Toro Rosso just a week later. In the preceding Chinese Grand Prix, Kvyat made a bold move on the Ferrari driver early in the race, Vettel accusing him of reckless driving and acting like a torpedo. "That's racing," grinned the Russian.
With on-track testing almost non-existent these days, Kvyat is likely to be spending much of his time in the Ferrari simulator, the team having made much use of it in 2017 especially over GP weekends.