Mick Schumacher claimed his incident with Williams’ Nicholas Latifi in the 2022 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix was due to the fact that he simply didn’t see the Canadian.
On his final Formula 1 race with Haas at Yas Marina, Schumacher outqualified his teammate Kevin Magnussen making it into Q2, the Dane dropping out from Q1.
However in the race, the German had a clash with Williams driver Nicholas Latifi, also on his last race with his team, clipping his left rear tyre, sending both into a spin.
Schumacher blamed the lack of clear vision from the new generation of F1 with their 18″ wheels, saying: “In general with these cars you don’t really have a big overview of what is happening in your surroundings.
“I mean, the tyres are super high, the steering wheel is in your face. So he outbraked himself a bit, went wide, and then came back onto the track. And I didn’t expect that, to be fair.
“And I just simply didn’t see him,” he claimed. “So frustrating at the end, I still managed to kind of get some good laps in, but by the end, the tyres were just gone. So yeah, a frustrating one, not the best, but we’ll look ahead.”
Schumacher was slapped with a five-second time penalty for the incident, on which he commented: “To be honest, I don’t really care.”
Doesn’t feel like my final race
Reflecting on his final Haas weekend, the son of Michael Schumacher said: “On the one lap, things always look a bit different because you can as a driver really get everything out of it.
“In the race, it’s a bit more difficult I’d say, just because you have different components, winds change, tyres the moment you lock up, the tools, the systems, everything has to be perfect to get the best out of the race. And simply today that wasn’t the case,” he explained.
Schumacher insisted his Abu Dhabi weekend did not feel like his final one in top flight and asked if it felt any different, he said: “Not really, actually, I was surprised.
“It didn’t feel for one that it’s the last race of the season. And two, it didn’t feel like my last race. So again, my mind is pretty much set on coming back in ’24,” he maintained.
Toto Wolff expressed interest in helping Schumacher, who may be lined up for a reserve role with Mercedes, of that the 23-year-old said: “I wouldn’t say I feel like I’m in pole position, but I do feel confident that I’ll be able to put something in line for me where I feel comfortable with.
“I’ve shown my pace, and I know a lot of people in the paddock are happy about how I’ve developed, and so I’m sure that it will be able to talk to a great deal of teams,” he insisted.
Quizzed regarding any potential gigs, Schumacher simply said: “You’ll find out.”