F1 News
No points, but a satisfied Schumacher: 'Wanted to tick off the list'
- GPblog.com
Mick Schumacher knew before his first Formula One season started that it would be a tough task. Haas F1 had already chosen at an early stage not to develop the 2021 car in order to save money for the 2022 season. Nevertheless, the German looks back on his first year reasonably satisfied.
Schumacher's highlights
Schumacher was one of three rookies to appear on the Formula One grid in 2021. The others were teammate Nikita Mazepin and Alpha Tauri driver Yuki Tsunoda. The first bright spot of Schumacher's season was the direct duel with Mazepin. Schumacher overpowered his teammate and almost always managed to qualify ahead of him (except for two times when Schumacher could not compete in qualifying). Also on Sundays, Schumacher was often too fast for Mazepin.
In addition, despite the poor car destined for the back row of the grid, Schumacher managed to get into Q2 on two occasions. In France this was still largely due to a red flag caused by Michael Schumacher's son himself, but in Turkey he was actually fast enough to get into Q2.
Just not all ticked off
Schumacher told Motorsportweek.com that most of the boxes did get ticked off in his debut year. "Obviously one of the boxes was to score points. Even though we didn't, it's been a very successful campaign and we managed to get everything out of what we had." Schumacher also admitted he has learned a lot about the tyres, something the German says is very important because the tyres don't work anywhere like they do in Formula 1 .