A Look At Daniil Kvyat’s Alternative Pit-Stop Strategy in Monaco

Daniil Kvyat on track during Sunday’s race. — Photo: Red Bull

Daniil Kvyat finished in fourth place at Monaco after being let through by his teammate on the final lap of the race. The result was Kvyat’s best of the year.

Kvyat let Daniel Ricciardo by on lap 73 after the safety car came in so he could chase down the leaders for a shot at a podium position. The Aussie was on fresh super soft tires and had a fair shot at attacking some of the front runners – when it was clear he wouldn’t catch them, the team ordered him to let Kvyat back through. 

“He [Ricciardo] was meant to overtake the people in front, the Mercedes and Ferrari, but it didn’t happen,” Kvyat said after the race.


The tire strategy of Kvyat was an interesting one on Sunday – he ran a completely different strategy than the rest of the top eight finishers. Like the rest of the drivers who qualified at the front, Kvyat started on the super soft tires that he set his fastest time on. The difference, however, came at the time of his first and only pit-stop.

Kvyat came in on lap 28 to switch on to the prime tires – nearly 10 laps earlier than the rest of the field. This early stop dropped him down to eighth place but he recovered to fourth when the rest of the field came in around lap 37 – the top eight were +/- two laps of that. 

His soft tire stint of 50 laps was the longest of any of the top eight drivers. Vettel had the second longest stint of the top eight crew with 42 laps; Sainz Jr. had the longest soft tire stint of any driver with 66 laps. 

Kvyat was able to stretch his prime tire stint to the end of the race and maintain ahead of the field who were on fresher tires in the closing laps. 

“This race seemed to come in our favour a little bit more, this track more adapted to us. But hopefully now we can carry on this momentum on the next races. So all in all it was a very positive weekend.”

All data obtained from F1 Fanatic.

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