Kvyat provides update on 2021 prospects with F1 stay ‘very slim’

Daniil Kvyat says he has received a lot of interest and calls about work opportunities for 2021 with his Formula 1 future at AlphaTauri hanging in the balance.

With just three races left of the season, Kvyat’s future is yet to be decided, while teammate Pierre Gasly has already been confirmed as staying at AlphaTauri for next year.

Formula 2 frontrunner Yuki Tsunoda has been tipped for promotion to F1 alongside Gasly, while Alex Albon could return to the Faenza squad if Red Bull decides to replace him with either Sergio Perez or Nico Hulkenberg next season.

Although Kvyat seems largely resigned to losing his AlphaTauri seat having admitted his chances of remaining with the team next year are “very slim”, the Russian revealed that he still has plenty of options to consider for 2021.

“People are calling me for sure quite a bit,” Kvyat said. “And for sure, there is a lot of interest from everything, from many places, but right now I know that I will be able to choose what I can do next year anyway.

“My deal was with AlphaTauri, Toro Rosso at the time, that I do 2019 and 2020. And that's it. And then we will see. However, after Abu Dhabi, regardless of anyone's decision, I'm deciding what I'm doing with my life, with my career.

“We'll see what it's gonna be, I still don't know. For sure there is interest from other people. I received calls, and it's good. It's always very nice to have interesting options. And it never hurts.

“So I'm definitely in touch with people, Nicolas [Todt, manager] is in touch with people. So it can become a very interesting thing in the future. So like I said, I'm open to many things, and I don't have any particular preferences at the moment. I am still focusing on these races here.”

Asked if he would be interested to take on a reserve driver role at Red Bull and AlphaTauri, he replied: “I don't know. I haven't thought about it yet. I haven't thought about these kind of things. So we'll see what will be on the table after the end of the year, first of all.

“And then you look at all the things and you pick what suits you the best, what you think you will be able to do the best job possible in a way.

“There is still nothing to think about yet, about these kinds of things. But of course, I'm not saying no to anything before it even comes.”

And Kvyat said he is “not too worried” about the prospect of having to take a year out of motorsport altogether, something Perez has also indicated he could be forced to do.

“I said that I have options and one of the options is also just to have a proper holiday year, doing something else,” he added. “Just enjoy other things, other things that I didn't do while I was in F1.

“I'm confident I can be competitive in anything. So whatever I drove usually, from day one,everyone was saying to me, ‘Wow, you're really competitive, even if it's a completely different thing to F1.’

“I had a full year off in 2018, and I barely drove anything. And then I came back to Abu Dhabi in the test, I did 160 laps and I was straight away very competitive also. So I'm also not too worried about that.”