Daniil Kvyat accepted the blame for tagging Sebastian Vettel's Ferrari twice in the first few corners of the Russian Grand Prix - the incident also led to damage teammate Daniel Ricciardo's car and effectively compromised Red Bull's race.
Kvyat totally misjudged his braking point heading down into Turn 2, and slammed into the back of the Ferrari which ran into Ricciardo. The trio recovered, but going into Turn 3 Kvyat again tagged Vettel causing him to spin and spear into the barriers and out of the race.
The incident came a couple of weeks after Vettel and Kvyat clashed during the first lap of the Chinese Grand Prix. That day Kvyat was unrepentent, but after this episode the Russian was contrite.
Kvyat explained to media afterwards, "There was a bit going on and I think in the last moment I didn't expect it to slow so much. I tried to press the brakes, the rear wheels locked and the first contact came from that. The second contact he just slowed down a lot, I couldn't see ahead, and I didn't have time to react."
"All the mess came from me… of course it doesn't feel great but these things happen sometimes. It's probably the messiest [start] of my career. I will learn from it - and of course apologies to everyone involved. I think we will speak [with Vettel and Ricciardo], that's all we can do. Everyone will attack me, but I'm okay with that," he added.
Vettel was livid in the cockpit of his wrecked Ferrari, but after 'hijacking' a motorcycle from a trackside official and making his way to the pits he has calmed down, "I got a big hit, I was lucky not to spin and then got another huge hit which turned me around and I couldn't avoid the barriers."
"These things happen - there is nothing I could have done differently. I think there was enough damage to conclude I couldn't continue. If anyone needs to talk to anyone, I think it's him [Kvyat]..." added Vettel.
Red Bull team boss Christian Horner, who was confronted by Vettel during the race, said, "Obviously Seb was slightly frustrated. All I could do was apologise, because this week it was unfortunately a mistake from Dany."
"I think he knows what happened. He's misjudged that first corner, and hit Sebastian who hit Daniel. From a team point of view it's screwed our race because we could have scored a lot of points today.
"Emotions run high with all these guys, in his home race I think he just went for too much too soon. Unfortunately I think he has just misjudged it."
Kvyat, was given a 10-second stop and go penalty plus three penalty points as a further penalty for his role in triggering the melee, finished the race a lap down 15th place.
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