Kvyat: 'Red Bull seem to have the faster car since the first race'

The current season has been one of the most interesting to date when it comes to the battle between Mercedes and Red Bull. Both teams are very much evenly matched and although Max Verstappen leads the championship, Hamilton has won one more race so far. The main question for the rest of the season is which team will ultimately prevail, but that is harder than ever to predict.

Faster car

In the new F1 Nation podcast former Red Bull and AlphaTauri driver Daniil Kvyat sits down to shine his light on the matter. He argues that both teams are now very much evenly matched, with Red Bull starting the season with a car that was better than the Mercedes. But they seem to have caught up to some extent.

Kvyat: "It's difficult to say. If you look at Mercedes historically, they always find something in the middle of the season, suddenly. They find some updates and then go flying. Besides, Monaco has always been a somewhat weak track for them. But Red Bull has generally had the faster car since the first race."

That's what makes a prediction difficult says Kvyat. For are the expected updates for Mercedes going to bring enough or will Red Bull be just ahead of the German team every time? "It's different this year. Often the German team was at an advantage." Baku is going to be an interesting race in that respect. It is again a street circuit, but the characteristics are very different.

Unpredictable

Can Verstappen beat Mercedes again in Azerbaijan? That is the key question and Kvyat is very cautious. The only similarity with Monaco is that it is a street circuit and that is where it stops. The Russian says: "Difficult to say, it has very different characteristics to Monaco. The circuits look similar but they are not. Monaco is extremely high downforce, Baku is more like Monza in terms of downforce."

"The tarmac can also be very challenging and the behaviour of the tyres there is very unpredictable. For example, I remember expecting degradation at the back, but then it was at the front. It can be very unpredictable there. I can't predict who is faster at the moment," said Kvyat in conclusion.