Kvyat joins contest for Williams slot

DROPPED TORO ROSSO DRIVER DANIIL

Kvyat has joined the list of candidates for the 2018 Williams seat alongside Lance Stroll.

Kvyat, who started 15 grands prix for Toro Rosso this season, was told by Red Bull motorsport advisor Helmut Marko that he would not be returning to the team after the United States GP last month.

In recent weeks Williams’ focus has been on Robert Kubica, Paul di Resta,

Pascal Wehrlein and current incumbent

Felipe Massa, but chief technical officer

Paddy Lowe has maintained his team has to assess any qualified and available driver.

“We’ll consider all drivers that are not contracted,” Lowe said when asked about Kvyat by Autosport. “Kvyat is a very respectable driver, so he should be in the frame.”

Williams does not have a deadline for a decision, and is resisting pressure from Massa to make a call before the Brazilian GP.

“We’re talking all the time to Felipe, and we’ll see where we get to with that,” said Lowe. “There are all sorts of scenarios.

“Relationships between teams and drivers around renewals is always tense, unfortunately. In F1 it’s a very public affair, and that does make it more awkward than we’d like. But Felipe’s a great guy, and he’s got a great relationship with Williams.”

Toro Rosso team principal Franz Tost pointed to a loss of confidence in Kvyat and poor results as the reasons for the Russian being released by Red Bull.

Kvyat only scored points three times for Toro Rosso in 2017 and contributed just five to the team’s current total of 53.

“The season from Daniil this year was very unfortunate,” said Tost. “There were a lot of technical problems that were not in the hands of Daniil. But he also made some driver errors.

“Both parties lost confidence in each other.”