“I hope we don’t have a lot more of them” – Haas to take $1 million hit on budget cap following Mick Schumacher’s crash in Jeddah

Mick Schumacher crashed horrifically during qualifying in Jeddah suffering an impact of 33G and causing a massive expense for Haas.

Following the deadly crash of Mick Schumacher, Haas has incurred a repair bill of up to £760,000 ($1 million). This would be the first big hit on the budget cap for the Haas F1 team.

Schumacher hit the barrier at the exit of turn 10 in the qualifying session of the Saudi Arabian GP. he crashed into the wall with a speed of around 270kph and suffered an impact of 33G. The massive crash tore the Haas car into two.

The German driver was conscious and did not suffer any severe injury but was still airlifted to the hospital for precautionary checks.

Speaking about the damage to the car, team principal Guenther Steiner said that it was extensive but the chassis appeared to be recoverable.

“The chassis itself doesn’t seem to be broken,” he said. “The side impact structure is, but you can change them. Obviously, we need to do a proper check on the chassis but it looks not too bad, to be honest.

“The engine also, I was told from Ferrari, seems to be okay. The battery pack as well. And then all the rest is broken.”

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Haas can not afford more crashes of this scale

The damage to the car has left the team with a steep bill and Steiner admitted that Haas can not afford more of such scale.

The team principal thinks that the cost is pretty high. “All the suspension is gone, except the front-left, I think there’s still something on there,” he said. “The rest is just like carbon powder.”

“I don’t know money-wise but with these cars, between gearbox, the whole bodywork is gone, radiator ducts are gone, so it’s between half a million and a million I would say.”

From the F1 budget cap, the teams can exclude some costs for crash damage. However, Steiner pointed out that they cannot afford many crashes of this scale before it starts affecting how much they can spend.

“There is a nominal amount but in a racing team you never could stick to a budget like in a normal commercial business,” he said.

“Because you have this risk, you have got obviously a contingency in there. But if you have two or three like your contingency is pretty quickly not a contingency anymore, it’s a loss. So you just need to manage. Obviously, I hope we don’t have a lot more of them.”

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