Mick Schumacher told what the main issue is by Haas chief

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Haas’ chief race engineer Ayao Komatsu believes Mick Schumacher “focuses too much on his team-mate” Kevin Magnussen, as doubts about the German racer at his current team continue. Schumacher’s future with Haas remains up in the air, with the 23-year-old out of contract at the end of the season.

His performances on the track this year have brought him 12 points, a marked improvement on his debut season where he scored none, and he finds himself 15th in the Drivers’ Title standings. However, he has been criticised for his inconsistency and Komatsu has hit out at Schumacher for not focusing solely on his own performance.

In an interview with Motorsport-Total, Komatsu said: “Sometimes Mick focuses too much on his team-mate. Then I say to him ‘look, Kevin really likes to help you and he tells you things he would never have told Romain [Grosjean] before’.

“Then Mick thinks and realises the most important thing for the team is to get up in the Constructors’ Championship. I explain it to him: ‘Mick, come on, you’re doing well, focus on your own performance and not on this thing’. And then it’s fine again.

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“It’s very good for Mick to have an established team-mate like Kevin. We didn’t know beforehand how good he is. Then Kevin came along and that gave us a reference.

“We think that with our 2021 car we would have been safe against Williams – we could have fought if we’d had Kevin back then. Mick would have benefited from that in his development.”

Komatsu also criticised Schumacher’s attitude in the sprint race at the Austrian Grand Prix, where he was left frustrated at not being allowed to pass his teammate.

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“Mick was behind Kevin and that frustrated him,” Komatsu added. “His focus in the sprint race wasn’t the right one.

“We talked about that afterwards. We talked before the sprint race about how we would do it as a team, but what he did after that wasn’t great, and what he said after that wasn’t great either.”

Haas team principal Guenther Steiner is still weighing up a number of options as to who might partner Magnussen next season, with Schumacher’s contract up, and there is a real chance the young German may find himself without a seat for 2023.

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