By not switching the starting order of their drivers during Saturday's sprint race in Austria, Mick Schumacher believed Haas jeopardized their performance.
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At the start, the Haas drivers were sixth and seventh, with Kevin Magnussen ahead of Mick Schumacher. From the beginning of the race, Schumacher pleaded with race director Gary Gannon to make arrangements for his teammate to pass him. Schumacher was informed that no swap would be set up after receiving multiple such texts. Lewis Hamilton passed Schumacher for the final position in the standings during the last few laps of the race. Schumacher had to drive conservatively to hold onto ninth place as Hamilton’s Mercedes snatched up the rear of them in the last stages of the race. However, as he was doing this, he slipped beyond of Magnussen’s DRS range and requested that the team slow Magnussen down to give him back the edge to defend against Hamilton.
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Had more pace to be in front
Schumacher, who felt Haas should have switched him with Magnussen earlier since he was “quite a bit quicker,” ultimately lost eighth place to Hamilton. “Yeah, I think that it’s something to be discussed,” Schumacher told Sky F1 when asked about his race. Obviously, I think the battle with Lewis was fun, but in the first place it shouldn’t have happened. I think in some ways I was quite a bit quicker.” Schumacher responded “yeah” when asked if he believed he should have been permitted to pass Magnussen, and then he gave the same response when asked if the team rejected the switch when he requested it. He also thinks he “saved” Magnussen from Hamilton’s onslaught and that, had Haas switched cars, he could have pursued Alpine’s Esteban Ocon in sixth.
“I think I had more pace to be in front,” Schumacher said. It’s something to have a look at maybe for my understanding on why we didn’t swap the positions, because I felt I probably could have attacked Esteban ahead. In some ways I was saving his [Magnussen’s] butt from the attack of Lewis. I was actually hoping he would drop back, which I think didn’t happen. So, that left me vulnerable then to the DRS [of Hamilton].” The stewards are looking into Schumacher for a start line infraction, although he is unsure of what he did wrong.
“There’s one thing I can think of, which was I did a burnout in front of Kevin, but I let him through,” he added. So, other than that I don’t really know if there’s anything I did wrong. I don’t think so, maybe I was out of position, but I don’t know.” While claiming that Haas “truly can’t be dissatisfied” with finishes of seventh and ninth in the sprint, which will determine their starting places for Sunday’s Austrian GP, Magnussen claims that he wasn’t asked to shift over by his team.
