After struggling quite a bit in a tricky wet qualifying session, Mick Schumacher and his teammate, Kevin Magnussen, who started 17th, had the opportunity to fight for points after escaping the initial accident that affected several of their rivals in the area half.
The Haas drivers moved up to 14th and 16th on the grid for the restart of the race and both staged comebacks. In the case of the young German, his side of the garage helped him by getting the strategy right, as he was called to the pits for soft tires when the safety car came out.
The decision allowed Schumacher to go from tenth position at the last start to eighth when crossing the finish line, after having almost snatched seventh place from a Max Verstappen with problems in his car.
This result meant that Mick Schumacher finally scored his first points in Formula 1, after 31 races with the Haas team. It was a double joy for the team, as Magnussen also managed to score points, finishing the race in tenth position.
The German driver said his team ran a perfect race to move from 19th to 8th as they did “the right thing at the right time” but also felt they could have done even better without the safety car intervening. being able to continue to the end with the hard tire,
“We were using two different tire compounds, I think we weren’t sure if the C1 [the hard one] was going to work or not, so we took a risk and obviously we hadn’t used it before,” he commented.
“I think I wouldn’t have had a problem if the safety car hadn’t come out at the end.”
“I think we probably would have overtaken Max, but I think overall we’ve done the right thing at the right time. [The safety car] I think was another opportunity.
Schumacher’s first points mean a weight can be lifted from his shoulders, having come under fire in the early part of the current season.
After a debut season in 2021 without too much pressure and with Nikita Mazepin, another rookie, as a partner, in 2022 things had changed for the German driver. He has struggled to keep up with his new garage neighbor, the experienced Kevin Magnussen , and several big (and expensive) accidents had put his future with the team in doubt.
Schumacher said it “feels great” to finish in the points for the first time, and hopes this result is just the start of many.
“Yeah, it feels great, I’d say I’m looking forward to getting back with the team now and having fun,” he said.
“It’s great to be able to score points in a finish with both drivers in the points, which is great and something we’ve wanted to achieve for a long time.”
“Now we’re just trying to take more points from the others and beat them little by little.”
