Not everything went smoothly yet, but Mick Schumacher is looking forward to the start of the season and his Grand Prix debut in two weeks.
Stepping on the brakes is not one of the favorite pastimes of a real Formula 1 driver, so Mick Schumacher’s personal record of the test drives can be seen as a pretty good signal. “I’m ready. If it was up to me, the season could start tomorrow,” said the premier class debutant after 181 laps over three days in Bahrain. “It’s just fun, I can’t get enough of it. I would love to do it every day drive.”
However, the 21-year-old will be put on withdrawal until March 26th, the first free practice session at the start of the season in the same place. There is enough time to evaluate countless data and to let the positive impressions sink in the Haas VF-21. In the heat of the moment, the son of Formula 1 record world champion Michael Schumacher saw “no more major construction sites”.
Despite a long compulsory break on the first day of testing due to hydraulic problems and a gear change, he quickly made friends with his racing car, and the previous year’s Formula 2 champion was also satisfied with his driving performance. Now sitting permanently in a Formula 1 racing car is a lot of fun, Schumacher assured: “The speed is amazing, you can push hard and rely on the grip.”
One question, however, remained open: Where does Haas stand? Schumacher took 15th place out of 18 drivers in the daily standings, but he drove in the morning when the focus was not on the time chase. Other racing teams, including the long-term winner Mercedes looking for grip or Sebastian Vettel’s Aston Martin team, had problems with performance and stability in the desert. Red Bull made the strongest impression, but traditionally many question marks remain after the tests.
Schumacher: “You can’t rely on the times”
The cards are only put on the table when it comes to trophies and World Cup points. Schumacher knows that too: “We can only compare ourselves with the others when qualifying begins in Bahrain. At the moment, everyone is hiding something anyway, the times cannot yet be relied on.”
Haas team boss Günther Steiner once again emphasized that 2021 would be an apprenticeship year for the small US racing team. Schumacher and his Russian teammate Nikita Masepin should gain experience in order to then leave the backcourt of Formula 1 in 2022 with fundamentally changed regulations and regularly fight for points.
“Our program was very different from that of the competition, you can’t compare it,” explained Steiner, and summed up with satisfaction: “We wanted to give the drivers as much time on the track as possible, and we managed to do that.” His two rookies would have “done their homework”. That is why Steiner also shares his model driver Schumacher’s thirst for action: “If Mick is ready, so am I.”
A special companion for Schumacher in his first season will be the abbreviation “MSC” on the time monitors that his father used. For Schumacher, who was still listed as “SCH” in Formula 2, the new, well-known abbreviation stands for “many emotions” and he has a “special bond” with these three letters.
