Schumacher’s broken car was ‘quite shocking’ for rivals

Michelle Foster 31 May 2022 5:59 PM

Haas driver Mick Schumacher sitting in his car in the immediate aftermath of his crash. Monaco May 2022

Driving past the wreckage of Mick Schumacher’s Haas in Monaco, Pierre Gasly says it was “quite shocking” to see the car split in two.

Schumacher suffered his second big crash of this season at Sunday’s Monaco Grand Prix, the German getting slightly off line through the Swimming Pool chicane.

He reckons “10 centimetres” is all that it took for him to lose control of the car, spear in to the Armco barrier with the car continuing into the Tecpro barrier on the exit.

His Haas broke in two, the rear suspension and gearbox in one part, and Schumacher in his survival cell in the other.

“I’m OK, I just don’t understand it,” he told his Haas team over the radio.

He climbed unaided from the wreckage before being taken to the track’s medical centre for precautionary checks.

It was a hard hit with his rivals having to make their way past the debris before the race was red flagged.

“When I saw the gearbox completely out, it was quite shocking,” Gasly said as per Motorsport.com.

“For the red flag, they took some time, but it was the right thing to do. I was a bit surprised we had VSC and not a Safety Car straight away.”

That Mick Schumacher walked away unhurt from this… 🙏#F1 #MonacoGP pic.twitter.com/4j2T6OW4AJ

— PlanetF1 (@Planet_F1) May 30, 2022

Race Control initially had the drivers continue on the track behind the Safety Car but given the damage to the barrier the red flag was then thrown.

It was Schumacher’s second big crash, the German missing the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix after smashing into the barriers in qualifying.

In that crash too his car broke into two pieces.

Fernando Alonso reckons that’s not a fault with the car, more likely that this year’s heavier cars mean a harder impact.

“I don’t think it’s a car issue, it’s just how hard you hit,” explained the Alpine driver.

“With these cars, they are very heavy, more than 800kg, so the inertia you go into the wall is a lot higher than in the past. As I said, probably we learned something from today as well.”

Sebastian Vettel was just happy his friend walked away unhurt.

“I was happy to hear on the radio he was fine before I got to the incident,” said the Aston Martin driver.

“It is easy to get it wrong so quickly. I don’t know exactly what happened to him, I haven’t seen it, but the main thing is he is okay.”

Schumacher’s crash has increased the pressure on the 23-year-old’s shoulders as he moved up the list for the most starts without a single F1 point, he’s now up to 28.

His team boss Guenther Steiner isn’t happy as the crash is also a huge hit to Haas’ budget for the season.

“With Mick we obviously saw what happened,” Steiner said.

“It’s not very satisfactory having a big crash again. We need to see how we move forward from here.”