Race against time as Mick crashes out
Mick #Mick
Haas face their biggest challenge of 2021 so far to get Mick Schumacher’s car repaired in time for Q1 at the Monaco Grand Prix.
Before the race weekend Haas boss Guenther Steiner had called for a clean Monaco GP, something which Schumacher ruled out after a brush with the barriers during Thursday practice.
That was dismissed by the reigning F2 champion as simply part of the game around Monte Carlo, but he was in the wars again come FP3, and this time it has the potential to be far more costly.
Coming into Casino Square Schumacher would briefly lose the back end of his VF-21, and that is all it took for him to slam into the barriers and make a complete mess of the car.
With only a few minutes left the session was red flagged, and since qualifying is less than two hours away, Haas face a huge challenge to get Schumacher ready to take part in Q1.
Perhaps in prior rounds it would not have been such a drama to miss Q1, Haas after all have found themselves with little chance of escaping that opening session so far this season.
However, both Schumacher and Nikita Mazepin were showing the kind of performance in FP3 which made them contenders to make the second part of qualifying for the first time.
Schumacher ended FP3 up in P14, a position which would be good enough for Q2, while Mazepin finished the session in P16.
Haas now face a real race against time to get the repair work done and give Schumacher a chance of repeating that form, in what is the most important qualifying of the season.
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There is also work to be done down at Williams after Nicholas Latifi crashed at the Swimming Pool section.
That proved to be the first red flag period of FP3 as the Canadian kissed the barrier on entry, launched over the yellow kerb and then slammed into the wall on exit in a quick but costly series of errors.
Heavy damage to the right side of the FW43B was suffered, so we are at risk of losing two drivers before Q1 even begins.
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