You can’t start a Formula 1 race weekend much worse: First, Mick Schumacher had ceded his Haas VF-22 to “Friday driver” Antonio Giovinazzi and skipped the first free practice session of Formula 1 for the 2022 Italian Grand Prix in Monza, then he coasted down with technical problems when he finally got around to driving in the second session.
His day was therefore “not so great”, says Schumacher, and that’s an understatement. Because the German managed just nine laps in Friday practice. Then an unspecified “problem with the standard electronics” stopped him, as Schumacher put it.
His Haas team had become clearer during the training session in Monza and had declared on social networks that Schumacher had broken down after a “problem with the drive train”. Haas connected this with a hand emoji, which can be interpreted as a typical Italian gesture – so a small dig at engine partner Ferrari?
Schumacher himself does not want to attach too much importance to the defect: “Something like this happens. I’m not the first to have something like this happen. And today it just hit us. I only did three fast laps. That’s not much.”
That’s why Schumacher is only in last place in the classification, with a lap time of 1:24.586 minutes, almost 2.9 seconds behind the leader and around one second behind his Haas teammate Kevin Magnussen, who finished 16th.
Haas: At least made “progress” with Magnussen
And at least with Magnussen in the second Haas VF-22, the team gained good insights, says team boss Günther Steiner: “We made decent progress with Kevin over the two units. Monza is not our best track, but it wasn’t as bad as expected.”
The fact that Schumacher had to sit out Giovinazzi’s Friday drive was “never ideal,” Steiner continues. “The fact that his only session was shortened doesn’t make it any better. But he still has one training session ahead of him. It’s not ideal, but he’ll catch up on Saturday.”
What is coming to Schumacher now
Schumacher takes a similarly pragmatic view: “We’ll just have to work more on Saturday and try to do more. So the third practice session will be more important. But I know the track well, so hopefully we’ll get a good set-up going on Saturday.”
Compared to his Formula 1 colleagues, what he lacks now above all is “knowledge of the track, where I have to place the car, what the car can do,” said Schumacher. “Those are the main things.”
“One always wants to have as much information as possible. But when in doubt [passiert sowas] rather on a route like this than in Singapore, for example. Track time is key there.”
But as it is, Schumacher is at the back and gets another blow to the neck with a gearbox penalty. He himself takes it easy: “We’re doing our best with what we have. The penalty puts us back before the race, but we still want to do well in qualifying.”