Daniil Kvyat admitted that his lack of running in the final practice session hampered his preparations for qualifying, after only managing to line up ninth place for tomorrow’s season finale.
Kvyat, 21, could only muster two installation laps in the final practice session earlier today after his Red Bull suffered an electrical issue. The team were hoping it would be a quick fix but were unable to diagnose and solve the problem within the practice hour.
Missing the session, coupled with a few gremlins yesterday, meant that the Russian did not feel comfortable in the car.
“Not running in FP3 unfortunately compromised our day and the car didn’t feel right.
“We were hoping that it wouldn’t affect us too much this evening, but it did and I just didn’t feel comfortable out there. Not running in P3, after the small issues we had yesterday, meant that we had to go into qualifying a bit blind.”
Despite the setback, the Red Bull driver is still confident for tomorrow’s Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
“We did a few long runs in P2 yesterday which was quite useful and will be helping us tomorrow. We will try to make up some places then, so hopefully we will be able to make something out of it.”
Kvyat is currently 10 points ahead of his teammate Daniel Ricciardo in the Drivers’ Championship and will be hoping he can retain that lead tomorrow to round off his strong first season at Red Bull.
