What next for Red Bull's 'torpedo'?

Little over a year ago, Sebastian Vettel raged over the radio to his Ferrari team. Vettel was left furious after clashing with team-mate Kimi Raikkonen at the Chinese Grand Prix's first corner, in an incident that was neither Ferrari driver's fault.

"The attack was suicidal," he raged about his assailant. "There was always going to be a crash." And then at the very next race, Vettel was struck again - by the same driver. Vettel went "ballistic" afterwards, his team principal claimed.

No, these were not a good couple of races for Daniil Kvyat - whom Vettel branded a "torpedo" after their Chinese GP collision - and they cost him his Red Bull seat, for he was publicly demoted to Toro Rosso. And now, 16 months later, Kvyat is still in difficulty.

On the face of it, this has not been a good season for Kvyat. After 11 races, he has scored just four points (that's one fewer than Pascal Wehrlein, who is in the slowest car on the grid). In the same timeframe, Kvyat's Toro Rosso team-mate Carlos Sainz Jr has clocked up 35. That his championship tally is less than half the number of penalty points he has accrued this season (10 - two away from a race ban) is even more damning.

Getting his braking all wrong at Turn 1 in Austria - crashing into the back of Fernando Alonso, who then collected Max Verstappen - and then hitting his team-mate on the first lap at Silverstone were particular lowlights. And yet Kvyat's future in F1 beyond this season still looks promising. So why is that the case?

Toro Rosso feels Kvyat has the pure speed. When you take a driver's fastest lap from any session over the weekend for each of the first 11 races, convert it to a percentage with 100% representing the outright fastest - known as the 'supertime' method - Kvyat is just 0.013% adrift of Sainz.

That is the closest of any team-mate pairing on the grid, and he only trails Sainz 6-5 in the qualifying head-to-head. Aside from strange off-weekends in Spain and Austria, where he was unable to explain his lack of performance, Kvyat has been on the pace in qualifying, pushing Sainz hard.

But he has failed to convert that into consistent race pace on Sunday. Performances such as his fightback to ninth place from a poor qualifying in Spain, to his second - and currently his most recent - points finish of the season are too infrequent. He has not beaten Sainz when both cars have finished this season, has spent just 186 laps in the top 10 compared with 386 for Sainz, and has a best result of ninth compared with Sainz's sixth.

But part of the reason for his lacklustre race form has not been his fault.

"Only one of our drivers has managed to get the points together," says Toro Rosso technical director James Key. "Sadly for Daniil, and this is not through want of trying or pace, he's been in the circumstances where it hasn't worked out."

Kvyat has been plagued by the majority of the team's mechanical problems, team errors, and factors outside of his control. Hydraulic failure put him out in China, Sergio Perez drove into him in Monaco, a pitstop error curtailed his race in Canada, and an engine problem ruined his afternoon in Baku. In Canada he was also handed two penalties for the same offence following a mistake by the stewards.

With that in mind, there is a certain level of sympathy for Kvyat within Red Bull. It feels Kvyat is part of its short-term future, not least because having a Russian driver in one of its cars is useful as the energy drinks company attempts to get a foothold in the country.

The first signs of this came last year, when he lost his seat Red Bull senior team (after the Russian Grand Prix). In the past, when drivers haven't met expectations, the team has had no compunction in expelling them from the system.

But Red Bull kept Kvyat on at Toro Rosso for the remainder of the season and then re-signed him for this term. It seems he is one investment Red Bull wants to protect for a little longer.

"Red Bull has been taking care of me for the last seven or eight years and this year it continues like that," says Kvyat. "It's still like that."

That might go some way to explaining why Toro Rosso has refused to criticise Kvyat this year, despite him giving the team plenty of reasons to do so. The Russian has the most penalty points of any driver and has not been shy in voicing his negative opinion of the stewards for the penalties he has been handed given. In Canada, he described F1 stewarding as a "stupid circus".

He committed a cardinal sin when he collided with team-mate Sainz at Silverstone. In Baku, he even suggested he may not collaborate with Sainz any more after they had disagreed on slipstreaming tactics in Canada.

"He must become more disciplined. If you start becoming emotional, you make mistakes, and then you crash" Toro Rosso team principal Franz Tost

In response to that series of events, 1997 world champion Jacques Villeneuve suggested Kvyat should be dropped from his race seat, even if only on a temporary basis, following his on-and-off track performances.

But the team has refused to criticise Kvyat, perhaps conscious of the damage it could do to his confidence, but also in the knowledge that he is part of Red Bull's future and therefore he needs to be nurtured rather than berated in public.

Kvyat's confidence was hit hard when he was demoted. He was downbeat and struggled to hook a weekend together. But Red Bull's arm-around-the-shoulder approach is starting to pay dividends this year. He has worked hard behind the scenes with his engineers. The team believes in him and feels he is doing everything he can. Though the results don't show it, Kvyat is starting to show signs of coming out the other side.

Red Bull activated Sainz's option on his rolling contract for another year ahead of the Austrian Grand Prix. Red Bull boss Christian Horner said that same weekend that while the option on Kvyat's contract for 2018 has not been taken up yet, he "cannot see a scenario where it won't be".

Ultimately, Red Bull needs a strong bench from which to draw should Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo leave the senior team. Securing Sainz's future was more pressing, given that he is on the radar of several other teams. Kvyat isn't in so much demand, but is a known quantity within Red Bull, provided he can get everything together.

Also in Kvyat's favour is that competition from Red Bull's junior programme is underwhelming. Pierre Gasly, the reigning GP2 champion, is the most senior driver on the programme. He claimed his first Super Formula victory at Motegi on Sunday and has completed a series of test days for Red Bull.

But despite voicing his desire to make the step up, Gasly has so far been overlooked for promotion. There is a feeling that he should have beaten Antonio Giovinazzi to the GP2 title more convincingly and ultimately is not quite ready to make the step up. Should he deliver in Super Formula, it may go some way to changing that perception.

But for now, Kvyat can draw comfort from the paucity of drivers queuing up for his seat and focus on improving his track performances, particularly in the way he deals with the opening few laps of a grand prix. While the team afford him some slack because of the mechanical problems, his wheel-to-wheel abilities are more of a concern.

"Daniil is doing a good job, apart from sometimes after the start when he is too impatient, or when he risks too much," says team boss Franz Tost. "If you look to his speed during the race, if he is just running by himself, his lap times are very competitive.

"He wants to be successful, he wants to overtake people where maybe there is no possibility to overtake, and there he must become more disciplined. Whether it's frustration or whatever, being in the car, especially at the start, you have to have your emotions under your control, because if you start becoming emotional, you make mistakes, and then you crash.

"The rest is OK because he's giving good technical feedback, he's showing good speed and, driving by himself, he's doing a good job."

Kvyat looks more comfortable at Toro Rosso compared with when he was at Red Bull. He's moulded a closely knit team of engineers around him. He feels there is plenty more to come and when he says it has been close with Sainz, you can sense his irritation that he doesn't have the results to back up his claims. He's not making any demands of Red Bull regarding his future, but has made it clear he wants to stay.

"I don't see any reason why not to because you have to be patient, I obviously want to give my best to Toro Rosso because I think they deserve more from me," he says. "I want to give more to this team because I'm part of this project and I'm part of this car development, and I would like to see what it will bring in the future. Step by step and then we'll see what happens in the following year."

Kvyat's position is not assured yet and ending the season without adding to his points tally will not be good enough. But there are already signs he's getting back to form, and if he can string that together in Sunday's Belgian Grand Prix, he will be on the way to taking control of his own future.

If he can convince his paymasters to exercise that contractual option, he has another year in which to try and reward Red Bull's support and show why he - and not Sainz, or another Red Bull junior - deserves a shot at the senior team when a chance arises.