Dany Kvyat agreed to disagree with Sebastian Vettel after the pair made contact on the first lap in China and the Ferrari driver was pushed into teammate Kimi Raikkonen.
After the race, Vettel and Kvyat discussed the incident in the holding room before the podium ceremony, and it was clear that they had different views.
“You see the gap, you go for it on the inside, you see one car, usually it’s hard to see both cars,” Kvyat said in the podium interview. “It was a risky move of course, I agree with Seb, but these kind of moves can bring you a podium, so I’m on the podium, he’s on the podium, it’s fine. I will keep on risking like this and everyone should expect that!”
Later the Russian said: “The start went well, corner one, corner two was a bit risky, obviously. In the end we can talk about it forever, but it paid off, and I’m on the podium, so it feels good.”
In the end, Vettel got ahead of Kvyat to claim second place after they used soft and medium tires respectively in the final stint.
“The race itself was quite controlled. Obviously I think our main competitor through the whole race was Sebastian. I think he made an excellent recovery. We probably missed out a little bit not having a soft tire in the end for the last stint, and on the medium we couldn’t really resist for too long to him. And yeah, he overtook us.
“But all in all, it was a very encouraging weekend. We are consistently third fastest team on the track, and I think with a bit of development in the future we can give a fight to these guys even a bit more. It’s all looking quite promising for the future.”
Regarding the team's prospects, he said: “I thought we were close in our pace to Ferrari; through the race we were challenging them, but we had to fit medium, which is the stiffer compound compared to soft. When we both were on the soft, I think our pace was very similar, and obviously Mercedes is still a bit of a step ahead.
“But with the developments in the future races, probably around Canada, I think we can make a bit of a step forward. In some circumstances, I think we can be quite a big challenge to them and today, after the contact at Turn One my car was also quite damaged. I don’t know at the moment how much, I still haven’t spoken to the team but there was a side pod damaged and I could see some pieces flying away. I still have to discover how much it was but all in all today the race was promising and we are on the right way.”
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