Mick Schumacher made his debut in 2021 after winning the 2020 F2 championship in his second season in the series, but struggled to shine in F1 behind the wheel of a Haas that was performing poorly.
The German driver and his teammate Nikita Mazepin occupied the last positions of the grid in the vast majority of grands prix, in fact, they finished the season without points, as Haas focused from the beginning on the future single-seater of 2022, forgetting about 2021 .
Despite having a difficult season as a rookie, there were a few highlights for Michael Schumacher’s son, who managed to comfortably beat Mazepin to two surprising Q2 qualifiers in France and Turkey.
Mick Schumacher ‘s friend and mentor Vettel acknowledged that while it’s difficult to judge exactly how good his compatriot’s rookie season has been, he said the young driver did “an incredible job with such a poor car”.
“Well, I think it’s hard to judge because the car has been so far away,” Vettel said.
“But, you know, obviously I’ve been watching him closely, and yeah, he did an amazing job with such a poor car to get to Q2 a couple of times or have good race results.
“It’s a huge effort to get that, and I think it was also a huge boost for the whole team. I think the performance from the beginning of the season for that team was pretty poor because they had no development and they were so far behind.
Vettel believes that Mick Schumacher ‘s work ethic, a famous trait also from his father, has served him well as he has tried to help his team move forward. And he hopes that all his efforts will pay off from 2022.
“I think if you look over the year, Mick has been very pleased and happy to work here, he has been one of the first or the first to arrive every day in the paddock and one of the last to leave, and that shows a great interest in trying to push the team forward,” Vettel added.
“So apart from the work he did on track and some very small mistakes that are very normal in the first year, he did a great job. I really wish he had a car that is much better next year so he can show what it is capable of doing,” he concluded.
