Kvyat on seat swap with Verstappen: 'Marko wanted me to beat him'

It was a much-discussed moment in 2016. Max Verstappen and Daniil Kvyat swapped seats at Red Bull Racing and Toro Rosso. Kvyat completed just four races in his second season at Red Bull when Helmut Marko and cohorts made the decision to swap him for the Dutchman. While the Russian was watching Game of Thrones, he got the (for him) unpleasant news.

The 29-year-old driver already had the idea that Marko wanted to switch drivers even before he drove at the track in 2016. "Helmut was like, ‘We need you to beat Daniel consistently every race, more or less'," Kvyat explained to Formula1.com. "I was like, ‘OK, let’s see, he’s not an idiot, but I’ll do my best like he will'."

Russian GP the final straw according to Kvyat

In China, the Russian still finished third, but at his Grand Prix on home soil, he crashed into Sebastian Vettel, which was the last straw for Red Bull, according to Kvyat. "The first few races were tricky, but there were clear improvements, like in China. Then there was Sochi and obviously they [Red Bull] needed this [for the driver change]," Kvyat explained.

For the man who has driven 97 races in Formula 1, it was a difficult period as he had to drive for the sister team again. "It started to be difficult times because my motivation was quite low to go back to Toro Rosso, another car that was a different philosophy. Carlos was very hungry and confident with that car, and me, on the other hand, not hungry, not confident. There’s nothing [you can] do against a hungry Carlos with that mental approach," the driver concluded.