Kvyat guarded about strong Toro Rosso pace

Daniil Kvyat has warned against Toro Rosso getting "overexcited" about its potential at the Monaco Grand Prix after showing impressive pace during Thursday's practice sessions.

The Russian was fourth fastest in FP2, 0.6s adrift of pacesetter Sebastian Vettel but a little over 0.1s off Daniel Ricciardo in second place. With Carlos Sainz backing his teammate up in fifth – 0.069s further back – Toro Rosso's eye-catching competitiveness has increased expectations of a good result but Kvyat believes it will difficult to remain so high in the standings.

"Let's not start with 'amazing' yet," Kvyat said. "I mean this was OK, we were doing our job and I think we were doing OK laps and we were competitive, so there was nothing we could have done too much better.

"It was OK, we need to keep an eye open on what we can improve because everyone will be trying to improve. In the end it's still pretty tight if you look at it. We were ahead of the pack, but the Mercedes were clearly struggling, I'm sure they will find the solution for Saturday, so we need to stay focused."

Asked if a podium is possible on Sunday, Kvyat replied: "I think many things should happen for us to be there; let's not get overexcited.

"We had a good Thursday – every lap was very coordinated and good quality, but there's a lot work to be done. The car seems good, but as we know, we have to be extremely focussed to stay in this window."

With the Toro Rosso looking impressive during pre-season but proving inconsistent so far this year, Kvyat says the Monaco performance shows what the car is capable of.

"The car has a lot of potential. Every time we put it in the right window it's very competitive car," he added. "In the right window we have to do a lot of work and clearly we did it correctly, not like in Barcelona. The car was very pleasant to drive, very reliable, very predictable for me, very suitable for my driving style. As a result we are P4 and P5. So we should maintain this and we should stay very focussed to maintain this window for Saturday."