Kvyat reveals ‘heated moments’ with Sainz

Daniil Kvyat has revealed he had a series of “heated moments” withCarlos Sainz during their time together in the Red Bull juniorprogramme. Both Kvyat and Sainz were promoted to Formula 1 in 2014and 2015 respectively having spent a handful of years under RedBull's racing umbrella. The pair competed against each other invarious junior formulae, with Sainz beating Kvyat to the FormulaRenault 2.0 NEC title in 2011. As they vied for supremacy in theRed Bull set-up, Kvyat told Formula1.com that matters between theduo became heated at times. “Today me and Carlos are really goodfriends, but when we were teammates there were some heatedmoments,” said Kvyat. “We travelled a lot together, we had somecontact on the track, and sometimes even our fathers had tointervene and say, ‘Hey, guys, calm down!’” The 2013 GP3 Series wasKvyat's last year in racing before he was handed a seat in F1 withToro Rosso, as Dr Helmut Marko issued the two former rivals with anultimatum. “During the GP3 season, Helmut told us, ‘OK, an F1 seatis on the table, so whoever does best will probably get it’, andthat’s when it started to be very serious,” Kvyat said. “I rememberthe round in Belgium, where we started first and second, almosttied on points, and I had to get that win. I won it, Carlos had acrash and I got a big lead in the points.” Kvyat beats Sainz to2014 F1 seat While Kvyat was on his way to the GP3 Series title, healso competed in the FIA Formula 3 European Championship. As heimpressed in a new car while Sainz struggled to get up to speed inFormula Renault alongside his GP3 venture, the pendulum swung inKvyat's favour for a 2014 seat. “There was another European F3championship at the time, with a bit of a different car,” Kvyatreflected. “Helmut wanted me to also do some races in that series,to do well in both cars, and I started winning there as well. “Iremember a race at the Red Bull Ring and it was close to Helmut, sohe came to say hi, and I did three pole positions out of three, sothat was a very important step. “Then Carlos felt it and he saidhe’d do the World Series by Renault, just to show Helmut that hecould do well in both cars, only that in his case it wasn’t goingas well. “So, more things were in my favour, I won the GP3 titleand I was offered the Toro Rosso contract for 2014 before the lastrace. “It felt like a huge achievement at the time, putting mysignature on it.”