Talking about his Formula 1 debut at the Bahrain Grand Prix, Mick Schumacher said that he is “90 percent” happy. This is despite the fact that he faced a spin after the Safety Car restart during the season opening event.
Schumacher came in at the 16th position at Bahrain after qualifying 19th. This was 0.8 seconds faster than his Haas teammate Nikita Mazepin.
Irrespective of the spin after the Safety Car restart which occurred on the exit of Turn 4, Schumacher still managed to enjoy a positive debut weekend.
“I think in general, let’s say 90 percent happy, 10 percent not because of the mistake that I did at the Safety Car restart with the spin,” he said.
Despite the incident, the car was still capable of continuing and everything was alright. He was able to keep powering through the race weekend.
“Luckily the car was still drivable and everything was alright, I could keep going and keep taking my experience through the race weekend. After I went through the C3s [tyres], the C2s, and the C2s felt really good.”
After the incident, Schumacher recovered behind Williams’ Nicholas Latifi who was suffering from a suspected boost leak problem. This affected the power and performance of his Mercedes power unit.
The team principal of Haas, Guenther Steiner was thrilled with Schumacher’s performance in Bahrain. He goes on to say that Schumacher improved in each stint on tyres and maintained a very calm communication with his team.
He was really happy with the overall performance of Schumacher.
“Except for one spin, nothing else went wrong. Advice I gave him, keep on doing this and we will get there pretty soon to be at a good level,” Steiner said.
The Formula 2 champion also mentioned how driving behind another F1 car especially for a prolonged period was a beneficial experience for him. Schumacher adds,
“Afterwards, obviously [it was] a bit of a shame that I wasn’t in the pack, being able to try at least to be close to the guys for a few laps.
“Fortunately, let’s say, I got through [the] blue flags but also [when] catching up to Nicholas, I was able to get a feel for how it is to follow a car close with DRS and everything.”
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