After a tough showing for the Haas F1 Team at the Italian Grand Prix, Mick Schumacher has stated that despite finishing outside the points for the fifth consecutive race, he and his team leave Monza ‘really happy’ with their performance.
Schumacher had originally qualified at the back of the grid after another performance to forget in qualifying, and despite the German driver facing a fifteen-place grid penalty, he still moved forward on the starting grid come race day due to more severe penalties facing Carlos Sainz, Lewis Hamilton and Yuki Tsunoda.
Starting in seventeenth-place on the medium compound of tyre, Schumacher soon found himself heading backwards by virtue of the faster cars starting behind the Haas driver.
Due to a lengthy first stint of the race on the medium tyres, Schumacher found himself up in eight-place shortly before his first pit-stop of the race. After pitting for a set of new soft tyres, Schumacher rejoined the field in seventeenth-place and with a fresh set of tyres underneath him the twenty-three year old was left with an outside chance of finishing inside the points.
With a large majority of the field nursing their tyres to the end, Schumacher, armed with his fresh set of soft tyres, soon started picking his way through the field. After a length duel with Nicholas Latifi on lap forty-two, Schumacher was able to eventually make the pass stick heading into turn six.
The late safety-car caused by Daniel Ricciardo’s sudden retirement came at the wrong time for Schumacher, as sitting in twelfth-place the German was just six seconds away from Zhou Guanyu in tenth-place. With the race finishing under the safety car, Schumacher had to settle for twelfth-place and despite his point-less streak continuing, Schumacher was left content with his performance around Monza.
“Considering I haven’t really driven much this weekend and had a difficult qualifying, to then actually be close to the points – I think mentally already being in the points – it was a strong recovery. The Williams was super quick on the straights, even pulling away in the DRS so I had to get the move done somehow, and it was a decent one. Overall, we’re really happy about the performance we’ve shown, and we really were on a good course as everybody else was struggling on their tires and we were on a very good tire.”
Kevin Magnussen: “Nonetheless it wasn’t a great day”
Meanwhile, on the other side of the Haas garage fortunes were equally unfavourable to Kevin Magnussen as the Dane attributed his finish outside the points down to contact on the opening lap, which resulted in damage to his VF-22’s diffuser.
Magnussen was able to out-qualify his teammate for the twelfth time this season, but was only able to qualify a place ahead of him in nineteenth-place. Due to the number of penalties facing the grid, Magnussen was promoted to an original starting position of sixteenth.
A strong start for Magnussen on the opening lap was immediately unrewarded as contact from behind by Valtteri Bottas resulted in the Dane’s diffuser suffering substantial damage. Magnussen stated that immediately after contact from the Finn he could start to feel his VF-22 struggle.
Despite the opening lap damage, Magnussen was able to work his way up to twelfth on the opening lap but by lap eighteen Magnussen found himself running eighteenth as his car struggled to match the performance of his competitors around him.
Six laps later Magnussen would come in for his first pit-stop of the day, swapping his set of medium tyres for a fresh set of soft compound tyres. Struggling to gain any real performance out of his Haas car, Magnussen would run at the back of the grid until the very end to come home for a sixteenth-place finish.
After another weekend to forget for the Haas driver, Magnussen was already turning his attention to Singapore, where he remains hopeful the characteristics of the Marina Bay Street Circuit will suit the VF-22.
“I had contact at the beginning of the race in Turn 1 – I got hit from behind and the diffuser got damaged – and then from there we were slow. The damage was too much, and I don’t know exactly the impact it would’ve had, but nonetheless it wasn’t a great day. You always hope that the next race is going to be better. Singapore looks more suitable for our car so I’m looking forward to it.”
