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F1 Russian GP: Horner sure Kvyat ‘will learn from mistake’

Christian Horner has attempted to defend Daniil Kvyat's impact on the Russian Grand Prix as a case of a young driver being caught out by circumstances at a notoriously tricky corner.

The Russian, now in his third year of F1 and second with the Red Bull team, collided twice with the rear of Sebastian Vettel's Ferrari in as many corners, ultimately pitching the four-time world champion - who he replaced in RBR's line-up for 2015 - into the wall on the outside of turn three.

Vettel's anger was palpable as he radioed the incident back to the pit-wall, and Ferrari team boss Maurizio Arrivabene confirmed that the German was 'furious' when he returned to the garage, but Horner - who also received a visit from his former employee while the race was in progress - tried to find reason for the incident.

"I'm sure [Kvyat] was pumped up for his home race, but I think it just took him by surprise by what he said of how quickly the car stopped ahead of him," Horner said, "He's young and it's the first time he's been involved in an accident like this and I'm sure he will learn from it."

Unfortunately for Red Bull, the incident wasn't only confined to Kvyat and Vettel, with the second RB12 of Daniel Ricciardo also being caught up in the shunt. Although both Red Bull drivers were able to continue after repairs - and, in Kvyat's case, a stop-go penalty as well - neither was in a position to recover to the top ten.

"He accepts that he made a mistake and these things happen - unfortunately, it destroyed both of our driver's races today," Horner confirmed, "I think there have been a lot of incidents at this turn here, as the nature of it is pretty tight, but the bottom line is he misjudged it. He hit the back of Seb, that concertinaed into Daniel and that was pretty much of the end of our afternoon unfortunately.

"Seb came and said hello and made his thoughts well known and all I could do was apologise to him. [Kvyat]'s apologised to the team and I think he's apologised to Sebastian - if he's not seen him in person, I'm sure he'll do that next time he sees him..." 

Zdroj: crash.net