Dany Kvyat finished well outside the points for his home Russian Grand Prix on Sunday, with the Toro Rosso driver initially criticizing his team for the timing of his pit stop.
Kvyat was targeting a top-ten finish from P12 on the grid. He spent his first stint on the tail of team mate Carlos Sainz but rued an early stop which left him ahead of Haas' Kevin Magnussen but behind Williams' Lance Stroll.
Kvyat trailed the young Canadian to the end, crossing the line in P12.
"I’d like to point out that my first comments after jumping out of the car this afternoon were maybe a bit too hard on the team?" Kvyat explained.
"During my pit-stop, we managed to get past Magnussen even though we then got undercut by Stroll and during my second stint I was unfortunately blue-flagged quite a lot and lost some more time having to let the leading cars by."
"After having sat down with my engineers I understand why the team called me in a bit too early for my pit-stop
"At the time, it was a very difficult call to make and nobody knew that the leading teams were going to stay out for so long," he said.
The Russian charger remains hopeful however for scoring points soon given his car's perfrmance in the closing stages of the race.
"On a positive note, the last part of the race, in clean air, was fantastic – we were flying and the car felt great!
"We now need to bring what made the car so good into the next races."
Gallery: All the action from Sunday in Sochi
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