It was a day of destruction for the Uralkali Haas F1 Team in Sunday’s Saudi Arabian Grand Prix as both Mick Schumacher and Nikita Mazepin crashed out.
Having made up a place at the start ahead of Williams Racing’s Nicholas Latifi, Schumacher unfortunately spun into the barriers on the tenth lap at turn twenty-two, with the German first causing a safety car that quickly turned into a red flag as the barriers needed repairing.
The German was able to get out of his car unaided, but the crash wrecked his VF-21, with Schumacher believing he was pushing too hard trying to keep up with the other Williams of George Russell when he crashed.
“Unfortunately, it seems like I was pushing a bit too much trying to get back into the DRS window of Russell and lost it going into T23,” said Schumacher. “The pace seemed to be there, we were comfortably keeping up with the Williams and I think that was what we really weren’t anticipating, therefore being highly motivated but maybe a bit too much in that case.
“That one point is still the target, so hopefully we’ll manage to get it there.”
“It was quite an impact unfortunately” – Nikita Mazepin
Team-mate Mazepin was caught up in a crash on lap fifteen after the restart following Schumacher’s crash, with the Russian unsighted as he came upon slowing traffic after Sergio Pérez and Charles Leclerc clashed at turn three.
Mazepin hit the back of Russell, lifting the Williams driver into the air, with the Haas driver’s car being heavily damaged as a result. He admitted he had no where to go but into Russell despite braking as hard as he can as he battled with Lance Stroll.
“It was quite an impact unfortunately,” said Mazepin. “We benefitted from a position of not stopping and I was fighting with Stroll coming out of T2.
“The next is always easy flat and it was meant to be for both cars but all of a sudden, the car in front – which was Russell – he braked. I also tried to brake but there was nowhere to stop from 200 to zero, so I collected him and looking at the replay there was a car on the inside that he was trying to avoid himself.”
