Mick Schumacher Q&A: French Grand Prix

For Round 12 of the 2022 FIA Formula 1 World Championship, Haas F1 Team heads to the French Riviera. Last year was a relatively quiet race for you but is it a track with characteristics you like or does it simply provide more opportunity to try different racing lines thanks to its wide run-offs?

“For sure it’s a track where usually you have the opportunity to push quite hard just because you know that you can go over a certain limit sometimes. It’s one of those tracks where you can push harder than other tracks just because you know you have the run off and the chances of you getting near a wall is quite slim.

"Obviously, if you do a mistake, it’s quite bad for the tires so you obviously don’t want to do it in an important session, but definitely it’s a track that is quite interesting. It can be confusing at times due to all the different lines, so it’s not just viewers that get confused, it can also be the drivers too.”

 

Paul Ricard is a circuit where you can really test the limits of the car before exceeding track limits. Will this be a good test to extract the full potential of the VF-22 ahead of upgrades in the race?

“We’re always trying to improve our car or we’re always trying to adapt our car to different places. I think we understand our package pretty well but we’re still trying to maximize it further and learn more from it and see how we can make it quicker. I don’t think Paul Ricard is a special track to do that, it’s a track like any other track. We have fewer quick corners there – there’s just one quick corner – which is usually flat anyways in any downforce, so it’s a matter of exploiting the speeds on a straight which we haven’t been great at this year.

"I imagine it’s going to be tough but in a Formula 1 race there is always a lot of action. Sometimes it can be quiet, and we are where we are, and sometimes there’s a lot of action and you can get through. We’ll just have to wait and see how the weekend develops and how we get on.”

France was the first time in your F1 career that you made it into Q2 in qualifying. Now, a couple of races after scoring your maiden points in Formula 1, how quickly has a year gone by and how does the Mick Schumacher of today feel compared to the rookie of last year? 

“Obviously I feel more experienced, I feel a bit more complete but there’s still a long way to go. It’s only my second year, there’s so much more to learn in Formula 1 besides racing and every day I try to exploit that to see where I can improve and where I still feel like I need work.”

 

We’re halfway through this run of four races in the month of July - how are you finding such a rapid succession of races and in your opinion does this contribute to being in peak physical condition or in an ideal world would you have longer to recover and prepare? 

“I think everybody would like to have more free time but at the end of the day, this is our job. I feel like even if we’re not at a race weekend, we’re always ready to work. It’s not as consistent as a 9-5 job but it varies, it’s a daily job.”