Even though Mick Schumacher did not yield any points in his rookie year at Formula 1, he believes that he learned a lot.
Mick Schumacher won the F2 championship in 2020 and got a seat in F1 at the Haas F1 team in 2021. Schumacher could not score any points for himself with the underdeveloped car and several prominent crashes but he did impress his team principal with his performance.
However, overall the German racing driver believes that his first year in F1 proved highly educational. When asked to look back at his year and pick out the biggest thing he learned, the 22-year-old highlighted the unique nature of Pirelli tyres.
He said, “I think it’s probably just how to drive the tyre. Obviously, the tyres [have] a very special and specific way of handling them. You have a very small window and, if you drop out of it, it’s quite bad.”
“I think that that’s just something that I’ve been getting used to, and the team has helped me a lot on that side. Therefore, yeah, I feel very comfortable on that side now”
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Mick Schumacher learned a lot from the lows
Furthermore, Schumacher explained the highs and lows of the season from his point of view. He particularly pointed out the way he defended against Max Verstappen in Budapest.
📻 “Not bad for half a car!”
Max and Mick bang wheels as Verstappen, in his damaged Red Bull, battles past the Haas driver 😮#HungarianGP 🇭🇺 #F1 pic.twitter.com/SBZTH0LpeW
— Formula 1 (@F1) August 2, 2021
“I think, for my rookie season, it’s been alright; I think that we had some good moments in there,” he added.
“We’ve been able to battle with Max [Verstappen] a bit in Budapest and we went into Q2 on merit in Turkey, which was great.
“So we had some highs, but we had some lows which I learned a lot from, and I think that’s what we can take away from this year. Hopefully, I’m ready enough for the challenge which comes my way next year.”
Like many teams, Haas decided to shift its focus to the technical regulations of 2022 and therefore it did not bring up updates in the 2021 car. In Schumacher’s opinion, this made his season anything but simple.
“Obviously, I think that we made the best out of it, or got the best out of it. The only reference that I really had was my teammate, and I think that we were quite confident and comfortable on that side,” he said.
“Obviously, we’re trying to push hard to get close to Williams. I think that, by the end of this year, we really closed the gap quite a bit. We’re closer to Alfa [Romeo], closer to Williams, and that’s something we really didn’t expect this year. So overall, we’re quite happy with it,” he concluded.
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