Mick Schumacher hit with ‘serious conversation’ threat by Haas boss if crashes continue

Mazepin hits out at Haas over contract termination

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Haas team principal Guenther Steiner claims that ‘serious conversations’ will be had with Mick Schumacher if he succumbs to another crash in Baku. The youngster’s car split in two last time out in Monaco leading to more expensive damage, the like of which Haas have become accustomed to this season.

But that does not mean that things are getting easier for Steiner. In fact, with each passing crash Haas come under increased financial pressure and strain to meet their own demand for new parts. 

Schumacher had already been on the wrong end of two other incidents in 2022 before his shunt in Monaco. Firstly, a high-speed qualifying crash saw him ruled out of the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix on just the second race weekend of the season, before contact with Sebastian Vettel in Miami added to Haas’ repair bill. 

Asked by GP Fans whether another Schumacher crash would lead to serious conversations, Steiner responded: “I would say so. We would have a serious conversation because at some stage we will run out of parts and we cannot keep up making them.

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“Again, as much money as you throw at it, you just physically cannot keep doing it. So we need to make sure that here, nothing happens. We have passed [our season’s repair budget]. We passed that allowance in Jeddah. We are in front of the allowance. I would love to be in front of the amount of points we have scored but we are in front on crashes.”

Some held out high hopes for Schumacher this season, given the extent to which he out-performed Nikita Mazepin in 2021. But the Russian was controversially ousted from his seat and replaced by Kevin Magnussen, who has made a tremendous impact on his return to the sport. 

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With numerous highlights, including a staggering P5 on the opening weekend in Bahrain, Magnussen has amassed 15 points which leaves Haas ahead of Aston Martin and Williams in the Constructors’ Championship. They are also right on the coattails of Alpha Tauri ahead of them, but Magnussen is the only Haas driver to have collected points this season as Schumacher still awaits his first. 

Having taken an agonising P11 in Bahrain, a P13 in Australia and a P14 in Spain, things haven’t quite worked out for the 23-year-old during what promised to be a fruitful year in an improved car. Now, he finds himself under pressure from the team boss, but Schumacher made a point to excuse himself in Monaco after the latest costly crash racked up another eye-watering bill for team owner Gene Haas. 

“It came out of the blue,” he explained. “And I spoke to other people. Most of the feedback that I got said it does look really weird. So obviously, we can’t check if anything broke, actually. But data suggests not, so just seems like a wet patch.

“It was really odd, because also the accident itself wasn’t in any way hard. To have it split in two again is quite unfortunate, because obviously it’s a lot of damage.”

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