Toro Rosso’s Daniil Kvyat was extremely unhappy with the F1 US GP penalty as teammate Pierre Gasly explained his collision with Racing Point’s Sergio Perez.
The F1 US GP at the Circuit of the Americas saw yet another conflict between the stewards and Toro Rosso’s Kvyat, who was the center of conversation last week in Mexico, after a clash with Renault’s Nico Hulkenberg on the final lap.
It was another late-race drama that led to the five-second penalty with the Russian eventually finishing 12th after originally ending up in 10th. As a bi-product of the penalty, Kvyat was left fuming, which he vented on Dutch TV Ziggo Sport.
“F**k! This is bullshit. It is unbelievable, I don’t know stewards are…completely…I don’t know, I don’t have words, it is so stupid,” said Kvyat. “I just went around the inside and he [Perez] closed the door, it is normal and then we touched.
“I overtook him around the outside. This is unacceptable.” Speaking to F1 website in the team’s hospitality, Kvyat added: “I’ve seen harder racing than that to be honest without getting penalised, so I’m very disappointed why it had to happen with myself.
“I feel like more often there’s something I do and they just give me the penalty. Verstappen and Leclerc, no penalty in Austria – me and Perez here, a penalty. Fine. I’ll just keep fighting. What can I do? I’m very disappointed about this and it’s a shame.
“I’m a hard racing driver and every time I try to put myself out there they just take it away from me.” The incident happened in the Turn 12-13-14-15-16 sequence when Kvyat tried to go inside as they banged wheels, with Perez shedding some of his front wing.
Kvyat eventually got the move done on the outside in the next corner. The move wasn’t aired on the world feed, like also the collision between Gasly and Perez just a lap before it, as TV focused Lewis Hamilton’s title win. The stewards statement stated:
“The Stewards reviewed video evidence. Car 11 was in front immediately prior to the apex of the corner, car 26 “dived” down the inside, had a small lock up and bounced off the kerb, which moved the car to the outside of the exit of the corner, colliding with car 11.”
From what looked like a sure points finish, Toro Rosso returned from US GP empty handed as Gasly was forced to retire, while Perez ended up 10th which was enough to put Racing Point one point ahead of Toro Rosso in the constructors’ championship.
Post-race, Gasly explained that his incident took place in the same few corners. “I was running in the points for 53 laps out of 56,” started Gasly, when speaking to media. “We were matching the McLaren in front, keeping the pace with Carlos.
“Three laps towards the end, we started to fight with Sergio and we came together in Turn 13. There was contact, and it broke my front right suspension and after that we had to retire. We were fighting in Turn 12 already, crossing and battling.
He went down the inside in Turn 13 and then we just touched with my front right tyre, and just bent the front right suspension. Honestly, racing incident or not, it’s not going to give me back the points that was on the table. I will have a look at the video.
“I don’t think there was anything big, but unfortunately it was just enough to bend the suspension and to end our race. It was a pretty late [move], we went quite deep through there and then we had contact. Honestly, I don’t have much to say about it.”
For Perez, though, the Mexican continued on his points-streak and it ended up being a mighty effort, considering he had to start the grand from the pitlane and eventually finished in points. “We had a tremendous race,” said Perez.
“We managed to recover well as a team. We used a very aggressive one-stop strategy and had good pace all afternoon. On the final lap, Kvyat crashed into me and damaged my front wing, but he was penalised and we took back the tenth place.”
Here’s a video link posted on F1 website of the clash between Kvyat and Perez
Here’s how the F1 US GP panned out
The story was written by Duncan Leahy and edited by Darshan Chokhani