From seventh to emergency exit: Schumacher’s dream explodes on lap 20

From the seventh seat to the emergency exit
Schumacher’s bullet dream explodes on lap 20

06/19/2022 at 8:57 PM

A Ferrari engine in the back leaves Mick Schumacher at the Canadian Grand Prix. On the way to the required first points in Formula 1, the Haas engine started to strike. The 23-year-old has to stop the car immediately and then struggle with fate.

Mick Schumacher curses pit radio, the international trend of Formula 1 simply beeps above the obvious words of the 23-year-old. On lap 20 of the Canadian Grand Prix, the Haas driver was fighting for seventh place when the VF22 suddenly disappeared from view. It’s not a driving bug that shatters the dream of first points in the Formula 1 world championship, but a technical flaw. Schumacher directs the car into the runoff area and stops it in such a way that it can be pushed off the track quickly. There was no reward for strong qualifying, and instead the US racing team tweeted: “Mick should finish the race.”

In an interview with Sky, Schumacher then confirmed the doubts that Haas had already sent in his first tweet. Namely, the Ferrari engine has said goodbye. “Totally broken” was one of the components, says Schumacher, “and then we had to stop immediately because otherwise it would have been more broken.” As “extremely troublesome,” he summed up the failure without guilt on his part. Looking at his first world championship points, which are still tangible despite the 50 laps remaining, Schumacher says, “Today could have been today.” Instead, it remains the 30th attempt with nothing to count.

For Schumacher, this is the next setback at a time when his future in Formula 1 after the current season remains unclear. The contract with Haas expires at the end of the year, after the serious and costly Schumacher accidents in Jeddah and Monaco, team boss Gunther Steiner demanded that the German finally reach the top 10. But in Montreal, this time it wasn’t the driver’s fault that finished the race, but the Ferrari engine that Haas was driving.

Although the Maranello engines are powerful, doubts about their reliability increase with each Grand Prix race. A week ago in Baku, Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc, who hopes to drive Ferraris, had to stop his car with smoking from behind, and three other Ferrari-powered drivers did not reach the finish line either. Leclerc, who was relegated from number one to third in the world championships after a strong start to the season, had to launch from the end of the field in Canada due to the imbalance. Already in 9 of 22 races, the Scuderia exceeds the number of components allowed for the entire season by several components. A punitive transfer would soon be for Schumacher as well.