Nikita Mazepin had quite the F1 US GP weekend with three different issues from Friday until Sunday, as Guenther Steiner dissects what happened.
For Haas’ Mazepin, it was an eventful F1 US GP weekend. However, painful might be a more operative word. A nightmare start saw him suffer an issue with his headrest which led to an uncomfortable opening lap, to say the very least. When speaking about the incident after the race, he was an irritated individual.
“Bad,” started Mazepin. “My headrest came off on the first lap in Turn 2. It made the first lap very sketchy because I couldn’t see anything in my mirrors. It added an unnecessary pitstop. So yeah, very lonely, boring and painful race, degrading like f**k. I believe it’s a human error. It came off in Turn 2, and it’s never done that in my racing career. So I imagine something was done differently for it to happen.”
A novel and unique incident, but not uncommon. When speaking about the incident, Haas F1 chief Steiner explained what happened when a mechanic seemingly did not put two pins on the back of the headrest properly, which is why it came lose.
“The guys told me that when they put it on the grid, there are two pins in the back which were not engaged completely,” said Steiner to media including FormulaRapida.net. “Because of that we didn’t have to take the headrest off when he got in the pits, they just pushed it down and in.
“I don’t know exactly why it didn’t engage, but it came off and, because of safety reasons, the headrest is part of your protection here, we called him in immediately. Which again was difficult, because if the head-rest is up, you cannot see the mirrors.” But his issues didn’t end there. An issue in the car also led to him suffering from burning feet.
“I’m also crying inside the car with how feet are burning,” Mazepin said on the radio. “It’s like they’re standing on something very hot. We’ll need to investigate.” When asked Steienr about it, he agreed that he has been complaining about it for some time. He added that the chassis is from last year but none faced the issue and neither did Mick Schumacher.
“He complained about the feet getting hot a few times,” said Steiner. “It’s happened a few times. We always tried to make it better, but it happens only to him. This is the same chassis as last year and we never had an issue with that. And also Mick, I mean, I didn’t ask specifically Mick, but he never complained about it – and for sure he would.
“So we need to look into why he gets hot. We need to do something, and maybe the next step is to do something on the boot. You know, you can do it both ways. But I mean, there was nothing broken or anything. And it isn’t the first time that he complains about that one,” summed up Steiner.
Its definitely different to other issues drivers could give or excuses they could come up with. As it was, it certainly seemed that Mazepin cant wait to get to Mexico and out of Texas. It was certainly a taxing weekend for him as the start of practice saw him suffer issues with his helmet.
The helmet in question was a special edition helmet and several other drivers were doing the same. “I did a special edition Austin helmet,” said Mazepin, when asked by FormulaRapida.net. “I’ve been struggling a lot with Bell helmets this year that the visor sometimes you get a bad visor and it has a hole in it where the air goes in.
“So at 300 KPH it does keep your right eye open which is not ideal because you know you start crying a lot, watering. Just upset about that.” Problems with his helmet followed by a head rest problem and then his burning feet. It has been a long season for Haas and their rookies.
The story was written by Neil Farrell
Here’s Guenther Steiner on Andretti and American sponsors