Mark the name Daniil Vyacheslavovich Kvyat — if you can pronounce it.

The baby-faced 20-year-old has been earmarked to replace Ferrari-bound wonderman Sebastian Vettel, four times the world champion, in the prize-winning Red Bull team for what will be a frantic upcoming season.

It is an appointment fraught with question marks triggered by the rookie’s promotion from Toro Rosso to the parent outfit when many established front runners would have jumped at the opportunity offered to the Russian L-plater.

But Red Bull, no slouches when it comes to taking a risk giving budding victors a chance to showcase their ability, as evidenced by their backing for Vettel and Daniel Ricciardo, both recruited as apprentice racers from their feeder team.

Australian Ricciardo, the only 2014 winner — three times — aside from Mercedes’ runaway twosome of Lewis Hamilton, eventually the world champion, and Nico Rosberg, the runner-up, has proved his worth in the shadow of Vettel and Kvyat now has the onerous task of doing the same.

That is a massive weight to bear on such slender shoulders, but the boy’s gift already has traces of greatness and, in his first F1 campaign, having at 19 years old, earned a ninth-place finish on his debut in Australia, he ended up a respectable 15th in the final countdown.

And, what’s more, he robbed Vettel of a record by breaking the German ace’s much-treasured position as the youngest-ever points scorer in F1.

The accolades back stage on the grand prix scene have been plentiful and rightfully so because Kvyat’s outright pace in a lesser car, his race awareness and readiness to go for it no matter what the reputation and experience of the driver ahead of him, has been a real eye-catcher.

In the final reckoning, and probably some considerable time beforehand, Red Bull’s shrewd team boss Christian Horner rated the rare, if raw, talent as worthy of an upgrade.

And fittingly it was Horner who was selected to do the honours as he presented his new star with the prestigious “Rookie of the Year” award at a London ceremony.

He enthused: “We are looking forward so much to working with Daniil. He is without doubt a fine talent and he has proved that at whatever level, karts and GP3, he has raced.

“He really does deserve this award — and I would bet it will be the first of many to come.”

The personable Rome-based Kvyat, fluent in four languages — English, Italian, Spanish and Russian — has even had a grandstand named after him at the Sochi stadium, venue for the Russian Grand Prix.

On acceptance of his “Rookie” trophy, he said with typical modesty: “My first Formula One race was so special I shall never forget it. The season has gone so fast I’ve hardly had time to catch my breath.

“And I have been privileged to work with some great and talented people at Toro Rosso. And I know it will be the same at Red Bull. I can’t wait to get started.”

The focus remained on Red Bull for dramatically different reasons — their UK factory HQ was burgled by a ram-raiding gang of six masked men who stole 60 trophies after driving their 4x4 through the glass entrance.

And the stupidly inept robbers, no doubt believing they had amassed a money-spinning haul of precious metal to be scrapped and sold at a big profit, gave rise to a repeat of the old expression “fools’ gold”. Most of the trophies were replicas made of no-value and worthless plastic.

— The writer is a freelance journalist and motorsport expert