Why Haas driver Mick Schumacher managed just nine laps in Friday’s Formula One practice in Monza and what happens next for him now
You can’t start a Formula One race weekend much worse than this: first Mick Schumacher ceded his Haas VF-22 to “Friday driver” Antonio Giovinazzi and skipped the first Free Practice session for the 2022 Italian Grand Prix at Monza, then he rolled out with technical problems when he finally got to drive in the second session.
His day therefore went “not so great”, says Schumacher, and that’s an understatement. The German completed just nine laps in Friday practice. Then an unspecified “problem with the unit electronics” stopped him, as Schumacher puts it.
His Haas team had been more explicit during the training session in Monza and had explained on social media that Schumacher had broken down after a “problem with the drive train”. Haas had linked this to a hand emoji, which can be interpreted as a typical Italian gesture – in other words, a small side blow in the direction of engine partner Ferrari?
Schumacher himself doesn’t want to attach too much importance to the defect: “These things happen. I’m not the first person to have such a thing happen. And today it just happened to us. I only managed three fast laps. That’s not much.”
That’s why Schumacher is only in last place in the standings, with a lap time of 1:24.586 minutes, just under 2.9 seconds off the top and around a second behind his Haas team-mate Kevin Magnussen, who finished 16th.
Haas: At least “progress” made with Magnussen
And at least with Magnussen in the second Haas VF-22, the team has made good progress, says team boss Günther Steiner: “We have made decent progress with Kevin over the two sessions. Monza is not our best track, but it wasn’t as bad as expected.”
The fact that Schumacher had to sit out due to Giovinazzi’s Friday drive was “never ideal”, Steiner continues. “The fact that his only session was cut short doesn’t make it any better. But at least he has one more training session to go. That’s not ideal, but he will catch up on Saturday. “
What’s in store for Schumacher now
Schumacher takes a similarly pragmatic view: “We’ll just have to work harder on Saturday and try to do more. So the third practice session will be more important. But I know the track well, so hopefully we can get a good set-up right away on Saturday. “
Compared to his Formula 1 colleagues, what he lacks most now is “track knowledge, where to place the car, what the car can do,” Schumacher said. “Those are the main things.”
“You actually always want to have as much information as possible. But in case of doubt [something like that] would rather happen on a track like here than in Singapore, for example. There, track time is the key.”
As it is, however, Schumacher is at the back of the pack and receives yet another hack in the form of a gearbox penalty. He himself takes it calmly: “We do our best with what we have. The penalty puts us at the back before the race, but we still want to do well in qualifying. “
