Guenther Steiner has spoken on the difference between Mick Schumacher and Nikita Mazepin, as Michael Masi adds about the Russian’s penalty.
Despite some of the shortcomings from Haas’ Schumacher, the German clearly seems to be in a better place when compared to his teammate Mazepin. The Russian has been involved in far many incidents, whether with someone or all by himself.
Schumacher too has his share of troubles, but not as much as Mazepin. In F1 Portuguese GP, it was similar scenario, where the German even managed to fight Williams’ Nicholas Latifi. The Russian certainly has to catch up soon and get better results.
Haas F1 team boss, Steiner, agreed that Schumacher has an upperhand right now, but added that it could be that Mazepin takes a larger time to adjust. “There is not so much difference [in Portugal],” he said to media including FormulaRapida.net. “There was a bit of a difference. We called Nikita in.
“This is why there was an additional pit stop that you could not see on TV maybe
Mick has a upper hand. But after three races do not jump on conclusions, maybe Nikita takes longer to get up to speed. They look a bit apart. But give the two drivers time.
If beaten by Mick, it is encouraging. We need to keep on going.
“We need to give time. He is a rookie,” summed up Steiner, who noted that Haas has to communicate with its drivers better after incidents like that in practice where Schumacher and Mazepin almost came together and then in the race, when the Russian was penalised for almost colliding with Red Bull’s Sergio Perez.
“There was nothing to communicate,” said Steiner. “In racing everything and everyone is different. I need to know the people before making a judgement. Nikita is very straight forward. What sounds harsh is pretty normal. As for the race, the blue flag came very late. We need to improve communication in the race.
“It never looks good even if the five seconds do not make a difference in the end. It does not make a big difference. No ones race was damaged and nothing changed,” summed up Steiner, as Mazepin admitted that he certainly needs to step up and completing races is all part of the learning.
“It was never going to be easy at a circuit where everyone is at their top level,” said Mazepin. “I never expected it to be easy but it was a little bit too lonely in the end. So it is difficult to sum it up in a positive way. I can do a much better job yet and I will always be able to do a much better job.
“But I think where I have been compared to a few races back I think is a huge step for me personally. These cars are very tricky to drive especially when the wind picks up like you have seen here now. Delivering these lap times consistently for 66 laps when the tyres are going away is something very difficult to do and to keep the car on track especially with the balance that we have which for me is very tricky for now. So crucial laps in the bank and every race should be better from now on.”
When all was looking good with no incidents, it had to happen that Mazepin was handed a 5s penalty for almost colliding with Perez. Masi clarified that the penalty wasn’t for ignoring the blue flags, but for the near collision between the two F1 drivers.
“So with Nikita’s penalty, it wasn’t so much the number of blue flags that were ignored,” said Masi. “It was more so the incident which was shown on the broadcast with Sergio at Turn 3, and the near-collision that was caused under blue flags. It wasn’t actually for a number of panels, it was more for the not effectively ‘getting out of the way at the earliest opportunity’… and nearly causing an incident as a result.”
Here’s video of Mick Schumacher passing Nicholas Latifi: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2021/5/2021_Portuguese_Grand_Prix__Schumacher_overtakes_Latifi_for_P17.html
Here’s how F1 Portuguese GP panned out
