Daniil Kvyat has made an impressive start to his home grand prix weekend in Russia by finishing inside the top ten in both practice sessions on Friday.
The Sochi Autodrom is hosting Formula 1 for the first time this weekend at an impressive facility constructed around the site for the 2014 Winter Olympics. Although it is early days, the first signs are promising, with nearly all of the tickets being sold and the drivers giving the track their seal of approval.
Kvyat, 20, has already had a grandstand at the track named after him, and he will become the first Russian driver to take part in a world championship F1 grand prix on home soil this Sunday.
After finishing seventh in FP1 and eighth in FP2, the Toro Rosso driver looks to be in the running for a points finish, but he believes that more progress can be made ahead of qualifying tomorrow.
“It was a normal Friday and we worked on trying to find the best compromise for the general setup on this new track,” Kvyat explained. “Even though we were already looking quite promising today, hopefully we can do another good step forward for tomorrow and look even better.
“I had a good feeling with the car, which seems quite promising here. It was great to finally get out there and I enjoyed driving on this cool track a lot.”
Toro Rosso’s pace was backed up by Jean-Eric Vergne’s results in the sister car. He too finished inside the top ten in both sessions, albeit behind Ricciardo.
“It was a productive Friday,” Vergne said. “The team did a great job to arrive here with a car that was straightaway well setup for this new track. I think we have a good car but today we didn’t get the best out of the tires. We still have some work to do tonight to understand their behavior and go quicker tomorrow.”
