When Daniil Kvyat was upgraded by Red Bull to senior bull status following his maiden F1 season with Toro Rosso, his thought life would improve alongside Daniel Ricciardo.
But a downturn in Red Bull Racing's performance cycle at the start of 2015 had junior bulls Max Verstappen and Carlos Sainz snapping at Kvyat's heels from the outset.
Kvyat's struggles even led to Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko openly questioning the Russian's performance, and whether he been promoted too soon to the senior outfit.
"You can't have any of those regrets," Kvyat told Autosport.
"It's a coincidence Toro Rosso built an extremely strong car that matched us quite a lot. It was another thing that wasn't easy to accept for me at the beginning of the year.
"But I had to put these kind of thoughts away, and in the end, as a group, we scored more points than them. It's fair enough to compare because the cars are very similar."
Indeed, Kvyat's form enjoyed an upswing as the season progressed, even outpacing at times Daniel Ricciardo. In hindsight, he feels his upgrade to Red Bull Racing was justified and not premature.
"It was easy to mess up the whole thing in the beginning, or even the middle of the season. But I think I still managed to come out of it in quite a good way, so I don't think it was too early.
"This kind of thing makes you stronger, you can't pick your perfect moments. You just have to adapt yourself and that's what I had to do. In the end I'm happy with how my move from STR to Red Bull went."
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