Daniil Kvyat: “Peaky” RB21 still has huge potential in F1 title fight

Ex-Formula 1 driver Daniil Kvyat believes Red Bull still has a “very quick car” that can take the fight to championship leaders McLaren despite the early deficit.

The Austrian squad is third in the standings, 148 points behind the leaders with only two victories compared to McLaren’s five. 

In many grands prix Red Bull has simply struggled to match McLaren’s pace as, in Bahrain for example, Max Verstappen aboard the leading RB21 was 34.3 seconds off winner Oscar Piastri.

But Kvyat is still confident that Red Bull can fight for the championship, believing “they are not far from McLaren when they put the car in the working window”. The main issue has simply been that the car is too “peaky”. 

“To be in that sweet spot, it's very narrow,” Kvyat added, while speaking to the F1 Nation podcast after the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix.

“You always try to maximise the car's potential while building it and then let engineers and drivers deal with it to do a good job with set-up and driving. 

#63 Lamborghini Iron Lynx Lamborghini SC63: Daniil Kvyat

Photo by: Nikolaz Godet

“But if you slide slightly away from this window, let's say, then the consequences are also huge and you lose a lot of lap time.”

Kvyat thinks that Red Bull “not having as much to lose” could actually boost it in the 2025 constructors’ championship with McLaren not really familiar with such dominance. 

“The pole difference [in Imola] was only half a tenth and also in the race where the deg is low, I feel like Red Bull can definitely be there with McLaren and especially if McLaren is behind them,” said Kvyat. 

“It's not going to be easy and of course also having not much to lose can fight a bit harder with the elbows out.”