Guenther Steiner says Nikita Mazepin was too harsh on himself after F1 Bahrain GP crash, as he added being pleased with Mick Schumacher’s run.
In an already a nervous moments for rookies like Mazepin and Schumacher, the aborted start to F1 Bahrain GP only made it worse for them, as they had to go through all of the procedure twice, thereby getting distracted very easily.
It happened with Mazepin out of the two, with the Russian going on the throttle too hard and spinning on his own at Turn 2 after going over the kerb. It was his debut F1 grand prix over in couple of corners, which left him pretty angry.
“It was very simple,” Mazepin said to TV media. “I made a mistake. The tyres were cold, I got on the kerb, took too much throttle and spun. Totally my mistake. I’m very sorry to the team, because they deserve to do much better than that.
“I’m very angry with myself and very sorry for the team. There are always positives to take. My days on track are very low. The learning experiences are there. Obviously you learn a lot through the days but you have your ups and downs and today is one of the biggest downs,” summed up Mazepin.
He was not the sole to spin as teammate Schumacher did so too in a similar way but he managed to save it and eventually finish his first F1 grand prix. That was the only blip the German was disappointed, in otherwise, a challenging but positive race.
“In general, I’d say I was 90 percent happy and 10 percent not – because of the mistake I made, the spin, at the safety car restart,” said Schumacher. “Luckily the car was still drivable, everything was alright so I could keep going and continue to build on my experience through the race weekend.
“Obviously, after that I went through the C3 and the C2, which felt really good. It was a bit of a shame that I wasn’t in the pack to be able to at least try to be close to the guys for a few laps. Fortunately, I did get through things like blue flags and I caught up to Nicholas (Latifi) – so I was able to feel how it was to follow a car closely and have DRS.”
His performance certainly pleased Haas team boss Steiner, as he felt, Schumacher ticked all the boxes he had to in the first race, apart from that one spin. For Mazepin, he felt that the Russian was too harsh on himself, as mistakes are part of the learning game.
“He was pretty beat up,” Steiner told media including FormulaRapida.net. “I just said to him to keep his head up and keep on going. For sure, it’s not ideal what happened, but it happened. So he beat himself pretty badly up but he is ready to go again, we pushed him up again, but otherwise Mick did the job, so at least we did 50 percent of the job.
“I am very happy how Schumacher did in the grand prix. He improved on each stint with his tyres and he was very clean, having very good communication with his team, except for that one spin, nothing else went wrong for him,” summed up Steiner, before adding more about the spins for both the drivers amid inexperience.
“I wouldn’t say it was the wind and we ran on full tanks before,” said Steiner. “I think Mazepin just went on a little bit too sharply onto the throttle. Then he was on the kerb and and just lost the car. These cars are so powerful, the torque kicks-in and then you can’t recoup them anymore, so, I think this is down to making experience.
“I do not think that they will do that again, I mean, spin it like the way they did it in the race. It was also a new experience in a race, while trying to fight the cars, they sometimes get little too optimistic and you don’t see how much traction you have got and how much the car can take of power from the engine,” summed up Steiner.
Here’s the video of Nikita Mazepin spin: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2021/3/2021_Bahrain_Grand_Prix__Mazepin_spins_and_crashes_on_Lap_1.html
Here’s how F1 Bahrain GP panned out
