Mick Schumacher should leave the car intact, that is a clear instruction from Haas team boss Günther Steiner. However, that doesn’t mean that Michael Schumacher’s son should just drive slowly behind the field. The South Tyrolean demands good performance from Mick Schumacher in Formula 1, in which the 23-year-old has not had it easy so far.
Steiner calls for a balance between minimizing risk, getting the car to the finish line without a scratch and achieving good performance. In Baku, the German was in the limelight after a violent crash in Monaco. The Haas pilot was also involved in accidents in Jeddah and Miami.
On the narrow and fast street circuit in Baku, Schumacher still managed to finish in 14th place, although a technical defect in the first practice session robbed him of important time on the track. In qualifying, Schumacher was 1.1 seconds slower than his teammate Kevin Magnussen, which meant he had to start from the back.
Schumacher brought the car home and this time managed to stay out of trouble. Nevertheless, Steiner expects better performances from the 23-year-old: “It’s not an easy situation for him and the team. This is competitive sport and what do you have to do there? Afford! But he did the right thing, because if he had had an accident again, it would not have been good.”
Steiner prefers to see a slightly slower Schumacher than a car that is split in half like in Monaco. Nevertheless, the German will probably have to step it up a notch in the future. In Baku he himself criticized the lack of time in free practice to set up the car optimally for the race.
“It wasn’t the race weekend we were hoping for,” says Schumacher. “I think things went very smoothly from Saturday, that was good. We only had one free practice session to find the right set-up. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen It didn’t work out.” Understeer in the middle of the curve and oversteer at the exit of the curve bothered him, and the tires also wore out quickly.
Magnussen was on his way to earn more points for Haas when his Ferrari engine gave up. So Haas went away empty-handed again, to the annoyance of team boss Steiner: “Something was wrong with the drive – the V6 or the turbo. It’s never good to have problems like this. He could have been ninth or eighth. Ninth place would have been safe. But once again it didn’t work out.”
This article was written by Andre Wiegold, co-authors: Adam Cooper, Filip Cleeren
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The original of this post “Haas-Boss counts to Schumacher: “What do you have to do in competitive sports? Perform!”” comes from Motorsport-Total.com.
