“I think compared to this time last year, I’m feeling a lot more confident and comfortable in the team,” said the 21-year-old, who started his F1 career with a rookie season at Toro Rosso in 2014 before moving to Red Bull.
“I know everyone a lot better and everyone knows me, so it’s good that we start off the season with this kind of confidence. With my engineers for example, we all know each other very well and with everyone in the garage too – we all know what each other is doing and what to expect from each other – so it’s good!
““I feel like we’re prepared going into the first race, we’ve done a good amount of work in winter testing with all the procedures we were after. We maximised everything and we know what to do in Melbourne and that’s the most important thing so there are no big question marks now and that’s very good.”
With his team mate Daniel Ricciardo likely to be the centre of attention in his home event next week, by comparison Kvyat will be able to ease his way into the 2016 season.
“I like Melbourne it’s a nice, chilled out place with good food, a good beach and sunshine,” Kvyat said. “Compared to Daniel’s Australian GP weekend, I’ll just have less media to be honest! But then I’ll get the punchback in Russia.
“It’s a more relaxed weekend for me,” he added. “I like being in Australia so it’s good for me. Daniel has much more time to stay in Australia anyway through the year so it’s OK he can suffer for a bit!”
