Uralkali Haas F1 Team find themselves starting at the back of the grid once again for Saturday’s inagural sprint race at Silverstone for the British Grand Prix.
Mick Schumacher will be starting the Saturday event in nineteenth. The young German driver had a better practice session, finishing seventeenth overall earlier in the day. Haas had made a few changes to their car going into the race weekend and Schumacher thought that would increase his chances of getting through to Q2 but was unfortunately not successful.
Schumacher said: “It was positive in one way because we made some changes that felt good, but obviously the pace we have is unfortunately all we’ve got. Of course, we could’ve improved here or there but generally it wasn’t possible to get into Q2. Still, the work is not done yet.
“We will keep on pushing, keep on trying and keep working on ourselves. It was interesting to see how everybody was excited to try something new and I’m excited to see how sprint qualifying will go. It’s a chance for us if some cars have issues, we might profit from that.
“As long as we are in the race, we’re in contention of starting a bit further ahead than we are now, so fingers crossed and let’s go forwards.”
“It was one of our better qualifying performances in terms of the balance” – Mazepin
Nikita Mazepin is yet to get out of Q3 and has been out-qualified by his teammate at every race this year. He’ll be starting the sprint race last in twentieth. Despite the low result, Mazepin believes the qualifying session was a better one for the team.
Mazepin does have a good history at Silverstone after previously winning at the track during his Formula 2 days.
“It was one of our better qualifying performances in terms of the balance. I think after having a very frustrating second race in Austria, it was good to get that. It feels a little like Formula 2, where I came from. I have great memories from Formula 2 here last year when I won my first race.” said Mazepin.
“There’s loads of similarities and I have to say I really like this environment. I generally really like how the weekend goes and I think you just need to see how many people have come out on a Friday, I’ve never seen that before in my life – so it was really cool to be out there.”
“We’ll see if there is something for us there” – Steiner
Team Principal Guenther Steiner was elated to see the crowds back at Silverstone. After two long years without fans at the track, they finally got to make their return.
Steiner said: “It was a great day today at Silverstone with the crowds back again and Lewis (Hamilton) going on pole for the Sprint – fantastic for the sport. We did our best and more was not possible.
“We didn’t damage anything, and now we’re getting ready for tomorrow for the new format of Sprint qualifying. We’ll see if there is something for us there. We will try our best.”
