Nikita Mazepin is spending more time with his side of the Haas F1 garage, along with his engineers, to build on trust and confidence for the future.
Mazepin was embroiled in controversies even before reaching F1, whether it was on or off the track. Once the championship started, his lack of experience led him to make mistakes, in a difficult car like Haas, whereas teammate Mick Schumacher had a better run.
He is having it tough to meet the F1 requirements, and with Schumacher having a smoother time makes it all the more difficult. Every driver’s first rival is their teammate, and Mazepin is facing a rookie well known for his dedication, for the wealth of opportunity and mentorship from the seniors.
Mazepin is slowly getting into his groove after a better run in Monaco and Baku. In the lead-up to those events, the Russian’s biggest trouble was getting the rear-end to his liking. While work continued on to stabalise it, on the other hand, he is finding other avenues to improve his performances.
One such way to improve is diving into working close to the team and learn what he needs to perform to the limits of his potential, and the potential of the car. Even before Baku, Mazepin spent time with his team after Monaco and same was planned for post-Baku.
“We flew with my team to England from Baku and the focus was on getting a week of studying more where we can improve, also studying a little bit about the 2022,” said Mazepin to media including FormulaRapida.net. “The whole week in England is online on zoom calls, but then we were quite fortunate we could share a flight together to England.”
It is the nature of the sport, and it is positive that the driver is willing to put the hard work to improve and make a name for himself. Elaborating more, Mazepin stated that he working with his two engineers to be on sync, especially on the track.
At the moment, Mazepin cannot demand and or argue hugely, considering the lack of experience on his part, but it is all part of building a rapport and confidence. “It’s very challenging, because, obviously, you know, the difference between me, Romain and Magnussen is about sort of seven to eight years in Formula 1, if I’m not mistaken.
“So they have much more feet to stand on, and much more arguments to fight with the engineers. But I think it also depends on the people a lot. I’ve been very fortunate that two of my engineers is Ernesto [Desiderio, performance engineer] and Dom [Dominic Haines, race engineer], who are very open minded and are very supportive in difficult times.
“And, I think we’ve performed the best this year in the last two rounds. And we know that Baku and Monaco are ones of the most difficult circuits on the calendar. So, this shows that the way that they trust me and I trust them is working. And hopefully, with the changes that we’ve done going into these two weekends, it will also give them the trust that what I request is necessary,” summed up Mazepin.
The Russian’s best result of 14th place came in the F1 Azerbaijan GP, where his teammate Schumacher passed him a few hundred meters before the chequered flag, to register his best result of 13th and help Haas to overtake Williams in the standings, to be ninth.
Here’s what happened between Nikita Mazepin and Mick Schumacher in Baku
Here’s Nikita Mazepin clarifying on his military service
The story was written by Lorenzo Liegi
