His car “didn’t feel particularly good” on the track in Abu Dhabi, says Mick Schumacher after Friday’s Formula 1 practice session for the 2022 season finale. The result underscores his statements: Schumacher finished 17th out of 20 in the Haas VF-22 drivers, was 1.963s off the leader but 0.076s ahead of teammate Kevin Magnussen.
However: Because Haas let his substitute driver Pietro Fittipaldi drive in the first session, Schumacher was only a spectator and only had one training session over 60 minutes. “That’s not so great,” says Schumacher. Apparently he doesn’t feel well prepared for the rest of the weekend.
To make matters worse, Haas didn’t get through the afternoon at the Yas Marina Circuit smoothly: “We had a few problems at high speed, but it wasn’t great even at slow speed. Not exactly the best of both worlds, that’s for sure. “
“So we have to see what we can improve there,” says Schumacher. He also has a theory where Haas is stuck: “If I look at other people’s top speeds, then we probably have to do something with the aerodynamics.” In other words: Flatten the wings on the VF-22. “Hopefully we can manage to catch up with them.”
What definitely worked in training: Schumacher “was basically there, a big bump [auf der Strecke] to rediscover, and somehow I found her too,” is how the German describes it. It ended in a “quite a scene”.
But: “Everything went well,” assures Schumacher. “I held the car. Everything okay.”
The conclusion of team boss Günther Steiner
Haas team boss Günther Steiner is impressed by Schumacher’s commitment: It only took him a few laps to get used to the track. “And then he did a good job,” said Steiner.
His team “didn’t have the easiest day” because Magnussen suffered damage to the underbody in both units. “His best lap was affected by that and the traffic,” says Steiner. His conclusion: “I think we can do more than what we showed on Friday.”