Daniil Kvyat is set to appear for the DS Penske team in the extra free practice session for drivers who have not raced in Formula E next month.
The former Toro Rosso and Red Bull F1 driver will drive Maximilian Guenther’s Gen3Evo car in the 40-minute session on Thursday February 13 and is set to have a seat fitting and simulator session at the team's Satory, Paris base next week.
The factory Lamborghini sportscar driver has a reduced racing programme in 2025 that only involves a handful of IMSA endurance races which is believed to be part of a plan to develop the Ligier-built SC63 to sell to customers in 2026.
That leaves a year of relative inactivity for Kvyat who has been in and around Formula E for several seasons, with his manager Nicolas Todt talking to several teams about a possible role.
Kvyat was in talks with Mahindra as far back as 2017 after he tested privately for the Indian manufacturer. That was when he first got dropped by Red Bull after a second stint at Toro Rosso but the Mahindra opportunity amounted to nothing after he got back onto the ladder with a third chance at Toro Rosso for 2019.
Since then, Kvyat has again registered blips on the driver market radar several times and actually drove a Gen3 Formula E car twice for the NIO 333 team at the Berlin rookie session in April of 2023 and Rome rookie-only practice session in July that year.
After that maiden run Kvyat told The Race that he “kind of had fun, it was pretty cool.”
“Actually, I spoke with many drivers that I know from before and they said that it’s completely different, and in fact it is. I enjoyed the car and I was pretty much up to the speed very quickly.
“I felt competitive today and you should try to be where you feel competitive, so why not? Of course, Formula E is one of the top championships of racing and it would be good to have it. I’m open to discussing a program in Formula E."
The Race understands that Kvyat’s planned DS Penske run out in Jeddah, which will see him reunited with the team's technical chief Phil Charles who worked with Kvyat briefly at Toro Rosso in 2014, is being viewed by the driver as a more serious opportunity to push for either a race seat or a reserve and development role in Formula E for 2026.
